Adjusting
by otherhawk
Summary: COMPLETE! When all you've ever known is pain and fear, leaving it behind should be easy. Right? Sequel to 'The More Things Change'
1. Chapter 1

**First chapter of my latest oneshot. Don't ask. Also, oh, twenty minutes later than it should have been. Don't ask about that either. Sorry. **

**So, this is set in the More Things Change universe, as I said. It's set probably three months or so after they leave 'home' and move in together in New York. Rusty's fifteen, Danny's seventeen.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with O11  
**

* * *

Bruises faded over time. Injuries healed and no new ones took their place. For the first time in his life nothing hurt. For the first time in his life he could wake up in the morning and pull on whatever he wanted to wear without having to stop and think about what it covered. For the first time in his life he could make plans for tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that and not have to mentally add 'If I'm not too hurt'. For the first time in his life _nothing hurt _and sometimes he found himself staring in the mirror at his unmarked skin and wondering.

For the first glorious burst of summer and freedom it didn't matter. They were far too busy for him to stop and think. Once he was finally healed up enough for them to leave the sanctuary of Mike's apartment, once Danny had finally stopped apologising for the moment of epiphany and insanity that had sent them running out of town three months before they'd planned and several days before Rusty was actually fit enough to travel, the rest of the summer had passed in a haze of theft and fun. They spent every moment together, because they wanted to, because they could, and it was more wonderful than he could ever imagine. And besides they had to learn, first their new neighbourhood, and then as much of their new city as they could. Had to learn where to work and where to avoid. Had to make enough money for rent, for living, for tuition and books. Enough that they wouldn't have to pull too many jobs when school started.

And that was the problem, or maybe it was just where the problems started. Hell, maybe it was just when he first noticed the problem.

September came, and his first day at his new school, and Danny's first day of college. And it was fine. Of course it was fine. He was quiet and unobtrusive and charming and likeable, and he tried as hard as he could (_it would please Danny_) and by the end of the day he found himself in the midst of a group of kids who liked him and who wanted to get to know him better. Jason and Becca and Andy and Victoria and Aaron. They went out after school and ate pizza and laughed and talked, and he span a little truth and a lot of easy, essential lies, and deflected attention away from himself and listened to them talk about the parties they'd had and the kids they liked, and how unfair parents were. It was fun. He had fun. They were fifteen, sixteen, and nice children.

But the evening came to an unexpectedly early conclusion. The others had to head home, had curfews and parents waiting. He'd never considered that, but they seemed to think it was normal, and they'd frowned at his confusion, and he'd shrugged and said that he was allowed to stay out an hour later, and they'd been wide-eyed and impressed.

He walked home, cursing himself. This was the sort of thing that would catch them out, trip them up. The stupid little details that they didn't know. He was sure that by the time Danny was fifteen, his mom had never bothered setting a time for him to be home. As long as he was at some point, she hadn't cared, hadn't noticed. He'd thought that was normal. He was pretty sure Danny had thought that was normal. But this was really all it would take. A thoughtless comment, one of those kids mentioning that Rusty's guardian let him stay out as long as he wanted, and maybe someone's parents would be concerned, and maybe someone's parents would call social services, and maybe someone would find out that Danny wasn't his cousin, wasn't his legal guardian, wasn't even quite eighteen. And then would come the consequences.

Fuck, he had to be more careful.

The apartment was cold and dark and empty when he got in. Not surprisingly. They'd agreed, first days and they were going to make friends, go out afterwards, have fun. Acting normal was the idea. Or being normal. He wasn't quite sure which. And he was pretty sure that college kids didn't have the same kinds of curfews.

He sat in the living room, the TV blaring out 'Three's Company' and he didn't bother to change it. Staring down at his maths homework, he wondered about the con with the florists that they'd been working on last month, the one that they hadn't quite been able to get to work, and he wondered if maybe leaving a couple of days in between visits could solve the problem?

Time passed and it got late, and Danny didn't come home. He made a sandwich and stared at the TV. Somewhere out on the street below, people were shouting and there was the sound of glass breaking, the sound of a door slamming. The apartment must be colder than he thought; he was shivering, trembling, and he pulled his legs up close to his chest and turned the TV volume down as low as possible, as the sound of running, angry footsteps echoed outside the front door, and when they went past, he let out a shaky breath.

_(He wished Danny was here.) _

Eventually, a little after midnight he went to bed. He left the light on.

* * *

_He woke up in the middle of the night desperate for something to eat, and that wasn't unusual at the moment. Seemed like he was growing an inch every week, and he'd gone from being vaguely hungry all the time to being _starving_ all the time, constantly feeling like he did when he hadn't eaten for a couple of days. And he already knew that he had nothing in his room, knew that he had eaten all the junk food he kept hidden earlier. Slowly, inevitably, he got up and headed to his bedroom door, the floorboards rough against his bare feet, and he was filled with a feeling of dread, of inevitability, and still he couldn't stop himself._

_The living room was dark. No sign of Dad. He must be asleep, and that was good, that meant that he would be okay if he was just quiet and careful. _

_Stealthily, without turning on any lights, he fixed himself a potato chip sandwich, and he poured himself a glass of water, and he turned to leave the kitchen, and, like he always did these days, he tripped over his own feet and he tried to save himself, tried so hard, because he knew what was going to happen, but he hit the floor in a crash of china and broken glass._

_There was a second of silence. He didn't move._

_There was the sound of a door slamming, the sound of angry running footsteps and then there was the shouting, and then there was the pain and the moment when his hand was stamped on, crushed into the glass and the crumbs, and the moment when the boot crashed into his shoulder, and he curled up as close, as tight, as small as he could and the pain came again and again and again, and it didn't stop. _

He woke up in a tangle of blankets and sweat, biting as hard as he could into his lip to keep from screaming, and the pain from his dream was gone, all the pain was gone, and that wasn't good, that was never good, because that meant it had been a while, and when it had been a while it was always worse, always much, much worse. It was better that it was often. Frequent. Better that Dad got a chance to work out his frustrations, a shove here, a slap there, a punch, a kick, and it was better, much, much better than when he'd been away for a while, when he'd been safe for a while, and Dad needed to take the moment to express every last inch of violence and anger and frustration and hate. Better that it happened often. He tried to explain that once and Danny looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language, looked at him with eyes filled with a different kind of frustration, a different kind of anger, and a hate that would never touch him.

Danny.

He wasn't at home . . . Dad's place. He hadn't been living at Dad's place for months now. They'd moved out and he was safe. They were safe.

Slowly he opened his eyes and stared round at his room. _His_ room. The room that he had in his and Danny's apartment, the room with the furniture that they'd acquired from a half dozen different sources, and he was pretty sure that very few other thieves had ever found themselves wandering round a home depot store at two in the morning, wearing ski masks and trying to find out if a wardrobe came in teak instead of pine, and whether there were pillow slips to match the duvet cover. His room, which was newly redecorated, and even the paint was stolen, conned from the nearly-finished office building under construction three blocks over, and they'd been left with a choice between taupe, mulberry and magnolia, and Danny had stood in the middle of the room, a large splodge of taupe in his hair that would later prove impervious to everything except scissors, and had wondered aloud what would happen if they mixed all three together, and Rusty had generously offered to try the experiment on the walls in _Danny's_ room, and it was just as well that they'd thought to put coverings down, because the ensuing discussion had left them and everything around them well-speckled with mulberry. His room. Because Danny had wanted them more than just safe.

And he was safe. And he couldn't stop trembling. Couldn't stop jumping at every little noise from the street below. Couldn't stop the nightmare – memory – from playing in his head, again and again and again. It had been oh, more than a year ago. That time a little while before he turned fourteen, when he'd been growing into himself, or whatever, and he'd been awkward and ungainly and clumsy for months, constantly falling over his own feet, constantly walking into things. It hadn't just meant a lot more pain from Dad, it had left him struggling to make the simplest of lifts, struggling to even shuffle cards straight, let alone do anything clever, and for a few weeks - after he'd been caught with his hand in someone's pocket, and Danny hadn't been there to try and save him from the beating that followed - for a few weeks Danny had earned money for both of them, and in between times they'd been figuring out cons, ways that they could rely on charm instead of dexterity. And that had been good. Whole new games to play.

He was safe. And the nightmare was still in his head. He licked his lips and his mouth was dry and he could feel his heart racing, and he wanted to run, wanted to hide and he wanted . . .

Danny. He gave up and admitted it. He wanted Danny.

Standing up, his bare feet sinking into the carpet, he grabbed his bathrobe and headed out of his room. The living room was dark, but he could still see Danny's jacket thrown over the back of the sofa. Good. Oh, that was good. Danny was here, and he wasn't too proud to admit that made him feel so much better, that that made the trembling die down just a little.

He pushed Danny's door open and blinked into the room, and he caught a glimpse of long brunette hair strewn over the other pillow, before he hastily stepped back out of the room, closed the door as quietly as he could, and stood in the middle of the living room.

Fuck. Fuck, that had been stupid. That had been so stupid.

He needed to do something. Anything. Needed to occupy his mind, his hands, his self. Coffee. He'd make a cup of coffee and he'd go back to his room and he'd drink it and do something that didn't involve thinking, maybe read his maths book or stare out of the window and count the people that went past or figure out what excuses he should use this month – no! That wasn't where he was anymore. Wasn't who he was. He wasn't trapped. Wasn't beaten down and scared.

Fumbling, hands still shaking, he got the kettle on and reached into the cupboard for the coffee, (_and he remembered another cupboard and reaching in and the cockroach that had scuttled over his hand, and he remembered __screaming - "like a little sissy, like a goddamned girly fag" - and he remembered afterwards and worrying that he'd cracked a tooth) _and suddenly the coffee jar was lying broken on the floor. Mechanically, he crouched down and with trembling hands, reached out to pick up the broken glass, anxious to clean up the mess he'd made.

Danny grabbed his wrist.

"Rusty," he said with quiet urgency and somehow he didn't think it was the first time that Danny had tried to attract his attention. Somehow, he thought that Danny had been there for a while.

He stayed staring at the ground for a moment before he looked up. There was a look in Danny's eyes, a worry. He smiled, trying to make it go away. "Hey, Danny. Sorry, guess I dropped - "

" _- _Rus'," Danny said, even more gently and hiding from each other was difficult. "Sit down, will you? I'll get it."

Biting his lip, he nodded and sat down at the table while Danny swept up the glass and coffee, keeping an eye on him all the time.

"Drink?" Danny suggested, when he was done.

He gave it a moment's consideration before agreeing and Danny reached into the very back of the cupboard, pulled out a bottle of whisky and poured them each a glass.

They sat together, and he knew that Danny was watching him, was watching as the shaking eased, as his illusion of control returned. Easier when Danny was there. Always, always, always.

Silently, Danny reached out and laid a hand on his arm. "You want to talk about it?"

He shrugged. "I'm fine?" he suggested, with as much optimism as he could manage.

Danny looked at him and the patient disbelief was obvious.

"It was just a bad dream, Danny," he explained with a sigh. "It was nothing. Really. Certainly nothing to disturb you over."

The look he got left him in very little doubt as to exactly what Danny thought of that.

He couldn't help but smile a little, and he sipped at his drink and took comfort in the weight of Danny's hand. "Really," he said, sincere and reassuring. "It was just a bad dream. Nothing that can hurt me." And maybe Danny still looked worried, but that was only to be expected. Danny was Danny, after all. But he could change the subject and Danny would let him. "I'm sorry for disturbing you," he said, in a voice that had amusement and curiosity and a question.

Danny smiled. "Her name's Della. Met her when I was signing up for class."

"What class?" he wondered.

The grin was wide. "Introductory Criminology."

Rusty blinked and laughed. "Oh, you'd better be careful," he warned. "No personal anecdotes."

"Right," Danny agreed. "Anyway, we got talking, she took me to a party, met a bunch of incredibly enthusiastic people, and brought her back here."

"Other than that how was college?" he asked, happy to listen to Danny's voice.

Danny shrugged. "Don't know, really. Different, I suppose. Apparently I should be joining a frat."

Rusty frowned. "Isn't that all about doing humiliating things and then getting drunk?" he asked. Which was strange, because, logically, it would make more sense the other way round. "And then going and watching the girls in sororities having pillow fights?"

"What kind of movies have you been watching?" Danny asked, eyebrows raised. "Anyway, apparently I'd need to spend a week doing exactly what someone told me to."

"Oh," Rusty shook his head slowly. "Oh, that's not going to happen."

"Not a chance," Danny agreed. "Doesn't sound like my kind of thing anyway. So," he smiled brightly. "How was school?"

"Fine," Rusty shrugged. "Full of children."

"Ah." Danny's smile was sympathetic.

"Went out with a few of them afterwards. They seemed nice enough." He paused. "They all had a curfew."

Danny looked surprised. "Really?"

"Yeah." He sighed. "Think maybe we need to figure out a set of rules I'm pretending to live under."

"Least it'll give you something to complain about," Danny agreed. "We can - "

" - ask the right questions - " Rusty nodded.

" - quietly - " Danny stressed.

Obviously, he agreed with a look. " - and figure out - "

" - what's normal," Danny finished and that was that problem taken care of.

He bit his lip. Thought of Della. "I am sorry for - "

" - Don't be," Danny cut him off firmly.

"Could've been much more awkward," he pointed out with a grimace. Because he might be open-minded, but there were some things he had no particular desire to walk into the middle of.

Danny nodded. "We need a signal."

"We could just start knocking?" he suggested. Neither of them had had much company over the last few months, and the few times it had been an issue, they'd both known there'd been someone else in the house.

"No." Danny's mouth was set in a straight line. Clearly not an idea he cared for in the slightest. "Sock on the door or something. Not that."

"Okay," he agreed, with a certain amount of relief. He didn't particularly like the idea of creating even that much distance between them.

Danny smiled at him. "How you doing?"

He considered. "Better," he said honestly. The terror had faded in the face of Danny.

"Ready to go back to sleep?" Danny asked.

"No!" he said, a little too quickly, a little too sharply. He winced at the look on Danny's face, but somehow he didn't think he was going to be doing that tonight. "Going to stay up. Watch some TV." He smiled, maybe a little weakly. "You should - " he nodded towards Danny's bedroom door.

"Yeah," Danny agreed.

But two minutes after Rusty settled down on the sofa, Danny was there with a bag of M&Ms, and they managed to find a channel showing 'The Big Sleep'. Bogart and Bacall, whisky and chocolate, and Danny was there, not judging, not asking, his shoulders brushing against Rusty's, and his nightmares felt far away.

* * *

He woke up when a door slammed, and maybe he jumped a little, and maybe he flinched a little, but then Danny's arm across his shoulders tightened, and he was safe and he relaxed, even as he felt Danny looking at him, even as he felt the frown.

A girl – Della, he assumed – was standing in Danny's bedroom door, glaring at them.

He lifted his head up off Danny's chest and sat up straight, wondering if this would be a good time to introduce himself.

"I'm leaving, Danny. I'll see you in class," she announced, in a voice that could have been carved from ice.

"Bye, Della," Danny said quietly as she swept out, and he made no move to stop her.

Rusty frowned at him. "You should - "

" - no," Danny said firmly, still not moving.

"Or at least - "

" - no," Danny repeated, a little harsher.

He sighed. "For future reference? I think that girls like it if you spend the night with them, when you spend the night with them. Rather than going and watching television."

Danny smiled at him, and there was something in his eyes that Rusty wasn't getting. "Yeah," he said simply. Then he looked closer. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," he promised, rolling his eyes. He didn't think he was lying.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 of a oneshot. No, I don't know how many chapters. Sorry. **

* * *

The third week of school and he was struggling to deal with the routine, the mundane, the normal. For the past three weeks he'd had nightmares every night. Usually several in one night. _Always_ several in one night, in fact, apart from those nights that the first one hit him hard enough that he didn't even try to go back to sleep.

But that was all right. That was dealable with. He was used to not getting much sleep, and to waking up suddenly, frequently, expecting pain and danger any second. And maybe just because he was safe right now didn't mean that he should abandon all his instincts. Maybe that's what the nightmares were about. At any rate, the lack of sleep wasn't affecting him as much as it could be. Oh, he was kind of nervous during the day. Jumpy. Anxious. And that was just about the sleep deprivation. Obviously, that was just about the sleep deprivation.

The only real trouble was that he couldn't stop thinking about the things he saw in his nightmares, and even about the things that he _hadn't_ seen in his nightmares. Yet. That was the thing; his mind wasn't doing reruns. Every night, every time, it was something else. A different set of memories. Different times. And there were so fucking _many _of them.

Let's see. Say he got hit an average of three times a week. Seemed reasonable. Some weeks, days, it was far more than that, of course, but others he'd hardly been there at all. Three times a week. Fifty-two weeks in a year. He was fifteen years old. That meant there were . . . . two thousand, three hundred and forty nightmares waiting for him. Plus leap years. Two thousand, three hundred and forty one. Difficult not to laugh; that could take a while to get through.

Because it wasn't the major stuff he was seeing. Thinking about. Obsessing over. It wasn't the time after Mom left, or the time with the nail polish, or the time after they got arrested. It was the small things. The everyday. The routine, the mundane, the normal. Stupid little things that didn't matter in the slightest. The time Dad slammed the fridge door on his hand. The time he was tiptoeing past the sofa and a fist from nowhere knocked out his first baby tooth. The time Dad hit him in the eye with his reading book. A shove here, a slap there, a punch, a kick – the things that didn't _matter_. And every single nightmare, every last stray thought, the memory of every little pain, and he was searching his memory, desperately trying to piece together what the reasons had been. Not just the reasons he'd been told at the time. Everything.

And in the meantime, the violence played out in his head, over and over. A movie he didn't like and couldn't escape.

He had nightmares every night and he wasn't going to Danny. That was acceptable for one night, one moment of pain in the middle of this better life of theirs. But every night? Every night and Danny might think that there was a problem. Every night and Danny would be worried. Concerned. Frightened, even. And he didn't want that. Didn't _ever_ want that. They were safe; there was nothing he couldn't cope with.

* * *

Sitting in math class, he stared down at a blank page that was supposed to be covered with quadratic equations. The world around him had faded some time ago.

In his mind he was four again, and Mom was there, that distant look in her eyes, and she was screaming at him, telling him again and again that he was dirty and wrong and evil, and he cowered in the corner, Reindeera – his teddy bear – clutched in his hand, safely hidden behind his back, and the words washed over him, and he didn't really understand. It hurt – in every world – when she grabbed his arm, wrenching it above his head and dragged him through to the bathroom and somewhere along the way, Reindeera slipped from his hand and he was alone. She picked him up and threw him bodily into the shower and slammed the water on. _"You'll stay there until you can show me you're better, you filthy little animal!"_, and she left him.

He huddled on the bottom of the shower, fully clothed and freezing, and the icy water poured over him, and he shivered and waited for her to come back for him.

It was three hours before he dared creep out of the bathroom and sneak through the living room, cold and frightened and confused, trying to get to his bedroom, his bed, trying to find something that meant warmth and safety, and then Dad was there, yelling about him dripping water through the house, towering over him, his face twisted with anger and -

_THWACK! "Robert Ryan, you are not paying attention!" _

There was an explosion of noise and an angry voice and a man looming over him and instantly he was on his feet, leaping backwards, his chair falling to the ground, dodging before the pain came, his eyes finding the door, already poised to hide, to run, to shield.

A second of stillness and he blinked. Everyone was staring at him. His maths teacher, Mr Pepperidge was still standing by Rusty's place, the large wooden ruler he used to bang on desks and startle students still gripped tight in his hands. And Rusty was standing, crouched and ready to bolt at the slightest movement, feral and frightened and very, very foolish. Everyone was staring at him.

Quickly, he stood up straight, let his face settle into a scowl, anger and defiance and boredom. Better – so, so, much better – that they saw that than they saw terror and humiliation. "I'm bored of this stupid class," he announced to the room at large, his voice full of frustration and disdain. He righted his chair, grabbed his bag and stuffed his books into it hastily. "See you all later."

He turned and walked out, and he could feel the atmosphere of confusion and disbelief he was leaving behind.

"Robert Ryan, you sit down this instant!" Mr Pepperidge thundered behind his back, and he resisted the urge to start running, and he managed to keep the trembling firmly inside.

He let the door slam behind him. People tended to doubt their own memories. Pretty soon Mr Pepperidge would be convinced that all he'd seen was an act of moronic teenage moodiness and his classmates would be convinced that all they'd seen was an act of stupid – or possibly impressive – rebellion. Both of those he could explain away.

Stumbling out of the main entrance, he collapsed onto the front step of the school, and with shaking hands, lit a cigarette. Fuck, he was so tired. So, tired and so stupid.

He'd flinched. More than flinched. He'd reacted stupidly, like a child who didn't know where his next beating was coming from. Like a child who didn't know what safety was. And he wasn't supposed to react like that, he was supposed to have that completely under control. He was _stupid_.

There was a cough behind him. He turned to see a woman standing there, looking at him sternly. He'd seen her on his first day; she worked in the office. "Robert Ryan?"

He nodded.

"Ms Lipinski would like to see you in her office. Now." Her eyes were narrowed. Expecting an argument. Expecting trouble.

Not today. He stood up, extinguishing his cigarette, and hung his head in an approximation of shame. "Of course," he said politely.

Time for some damage limitation.

* * *

Ms Lipinski, the Assistant Principal, studied him carefully. And, rather more surreptitiously, he studied her right back and thought. She hadn't started out yelling, hadn't started out looking at him with judgement in her eyes. She was waiting to hear his side of the story, and in some ways that wasn't necessarily a good thing. Often it was easier to manipulate someone who'd already made up their minds. Easier to convince them that they were seeing exactly what they thought they were seeing.

"Do you know why you're here?" she began eventually.

He nodded fervently. "Yes, ma'am and I'm really, really sorry." His voice was apologetic and embarrassed, a child who'd done something stupid and knew it.

She blinked. "You walked out of Mr Pepperidge's class," she said, watching him carefully. "Would you like to tell me what happened?"

"Of course, ma'am." He took a deep breath and hesitated, as if he was trying to decide where to begin. "It was all my fault," he said at last. "I guess I wasn't paying attention in class – I think I might even have fallen asleep for a moment – and when Mr Pepperidge drew attention to it, I felt really embarrassed and pi . . . and _angry," _he corrected himself with what he hoped was an endearing haste and sincerity. He watched her through his eyelashes. Her lips twitched. Good. "And I guess I just lost my temper and stormed out. I know it was stupid. Believe me, I know. And really, it's not like me. And I am really sorry."

She was nodding now, her hands steepled in front of her, and as he finished speaking, she leaned forwards. "Can you think of any reason why you were so distracted in class?"

He grimaced. "I didn't get much sleep last night," he admitted. "I had this headache – a migraine, really. Danny wanted me to stay off school, but I didn't want to risk falling behind."

There was a hint of sympathy in her eyes and it seemed as though she believed him. "What do _you _think should happen now, Robert?"

"I should apologise to Mr Pepperidge," he said immediately. Teachers always liked apologies.

She smiled. "And to the rest of your class," she prompted.

Oh. Public apologies. Very much not his thing. Still. He could get through it. "All right," he agreed.

"And obviously some sort of punishment is in order," she added casually.

He ignored the tendrils of ice that were wrapping their way round his heart, ignored the shaking that started somewhere deep inside, ignored the way his mouth was dry and his mind was screaming. School. He was in school. No one got hit here. Punishment was about suspension, detention, lines. Nothing that mattered to him in the slightest. "Obviously," he agreed, short and steady. He didn't know if he trusted his voice for full sentences.

"Now, normally, we'd be looking at suspending you. But honestly, for a first offence, in the circumstances, and so far all your other teachers have given me glowing reports of your behaviour and academic work."

He nodded and tried to look delighted. "I've been trying. Thank you."

She smiled. "So, I think perhaps three days detention will be adequate. Does that sound acceptable?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied promptly. He knew the right answers.

"Of course, we're going to need to alert your guardian," she said and he froze. No. No, he didn't want Danny to know about this. Danny would know this wasn't right. Danny would worry. Not to mention that Danny was his . . . his . . . _not _his guardian, anyway, and the choice to tell him or not should be Rusty's.

Not that he could argue. Not that he got any say in it. He nodded, tight-lipped and angry, and she frowned.

"You can come and pick the letter up from the office at the end of the day," she added. "Make sure your guardian signs and returns the slip at the bottom."

Oh. Oh, thank God. He was careful not to let it show, but inside he was rejoicing. They didn't want to see Danny, they didn't even want to speak to Danny. They just wanted his signature, and Rusty could provide that just as easily. "Sure," he said sullenly.

She looked down at the thin file in front of her. "You live with your cousin, right?" she asked with heavy-handed casualness. "Danny, you said. What's that like?"

Fuck. Not good. She was one step short of going 'Is everything okay at home?' And he didn't know whether she was worried that he was being hurt or worried that he was running wild. Or both. Hell, she might even simply be curious about the fact that his 'guardian' was only four years older than he was. Didn't matter. He smiled. "It's _wonderful_" he said, with naïve sincerity. "Danny's great. He's always there for me. He listens to me." He paused. "It's wonderful," he repeated, and this time he was thinking about the truth, and this time he meant it.

"That's good," she smiled. "It must be nice to have someone who's more of a friend than a parent? Someone who let's you do what you want?"

Oh, subtle she wasn't. He let himself pout slightly. "I _wish _he let me do whatever I want. Before he lets me go out at the weekend, he actually _checks _whether I've done my homework."

He watched her carefully and saw the satisfaction, the reassurance and the dismissal in her eyes. It wasn't a problem. _He _wasn't a problem. There was no problem. No problem at all.

* * *

After school and he was surrounded by kids – friends. Andy had just told a joke, and Jason laughed and slapped Rusty on the back. He tensed for a second, and there was a moment when his brain screamed at him to run. To run and not stop. The moment passed, and he was getting used to that.

Seemed as though people were always touching him. Sudden hugs. Pats on the back. Manly punches on the arm. More than he would expect. More than he was used to. Didn't seem as though it had happened before, back home, and he wondered if the kids he grew up with somehow knew not to touch him too much.

Victoria grabbed his arm playfully. "Rusty, you're coming round to Aaron's, aren't you?"

"No," he said, patiently and for the fifth time that day.

"Come on," she insisted. "You can help me with my French homework." She clung a little tighter and he felt a vague surge of irritation.

"I said no," he said firmer.

She ignored him. "And we can talk about Samuel's party on Friday."

"I'm not going," he pointed out.

"Rhona will be there," she said archly.

The hand on his arm squeezed a little tighter, and there were people talking all around him, people shouting and laughing, people standing between him and the door. "I'm not interested in Rhona!" he snapped wildly. "I don't want to go to the party, can't you understand that? I don't want to go to the party and I don't want to go to Aaron's tonight, and I don't like Rhona, okay? Have you got that?" By the end he was almost shouting, his voice raised, his hands shaking.

People were staring at him. A lot of people. Victoria dropped his arm and stepped back.

He shook his head, bewildered, and stuck his hands in his pockets. "I . . . I have to go."

He fled.

* * *

He walked slowly up the street, fighting to keep his eyes open, fighting to stay awake, and Dad was standing outside their apartment building.

For a moment there was nothing. For a moment he was carved from ice, cold and immobile and fragile. Then he blinked frantically, and Dad vanished to be replaced by an older man, a shorter man, a stranger.

He forced himself to walk past. Forced himself not to look. Tried to force himself not to tremble.

* * *

The sun was setting and he was sitting on a park bench, staring at his hands. It had been a while. It had been a while and he was still shaking.

He wondered if Dad was looking for him. Wondered what Dad would do to him if he found him, or if he was sent back. If someone found out and he was sent back home to Dad. What would happen? How bad could it get? He wanted to run, to fight, to do something, anything.

Danny slumped down on the bench beside him and handed him a hotdog.

Mustard and ketchup. That was good.

For a while they sat and stared at nothing, and Danny was inches away, and the shaking faded and he wasn't afraid.

"Are you even awake right now?" Danny asked quietly.

He shrugged. He wasn't sure. "Thought you were out tonight?" he asked. "Studying for that presentation with Cherie?" And normally he'd have pointed out that they weren't actually supposed to be studying each other's anatomy.

Danny looked at him. "That was yesterday, Rus'," he told him softly.

Oh. Right. He remembered now, vaguely. "Must have misheard you," he said lightly. If Danny thought he'd forgotten, he'd be worried.

There was worry in Danny's eyes anyway. "Rusty? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said firmly. "Nothing's wrong. Just had a bad day or something."

"Right," Danny nodded, obviously unconvinced. "And what, you just decided to come and sit in the park and freeze to death?"

Wasn't that cold. "Nah," he said with a grin. "I was out with Jason and Victoria after school. Took the long way home. Stopped off to admire the ducks."

There was a long, long moment of absolute, universe-ending silence.

"Rus'?" Danny's voice was quiet and his face was expressionless. "I'm not asking you to talk to me. But don't lie to my face and expect me to believe it."

He blinked. "I . . . " _(Forgot.) "_I didn't . . . " He bit his lip and didn't say anything else. There wasn't anything else he could say. He looked up at Danny helplessly.

"Come on," Danny said gently. "Let's go home and get you to bed."

He let himself be pulled to his feet, let himself be led away by the hand, and Danny didn't say anything when he dropped his uneaten hotdog to the ground.


	3. Chapter 3

**Still don't know how long this is going to be. **

**Oh, and before anyone says anything, legal drinking age in New York at the time was 18. Believe they raised it later.  
**

* * *

He woke up, trembling and confused. It was dark. He was under the bed. _Hiding _under the bed. Fifteen, and he was hiding from his nightmares.

With a deep, shaky breath, he scrambled out and pulled himself to his feet. It was early. Not quite five, and there didn't seem much point in going back to sleep. Not that he'd manage it anyway.

He didn't remember hiding. Last night he'd gone to sleep, comfortable and under the covers, and this morning he'd woken up cowering on the floor, and there was nothing in between but hazy memories of pain and fear and helpless hopelessness. Fuck.

Nightmare, obviously enough, and he hadn't woken up, had just crawled out of bed, pulled the covers down after him. He didn't remember the nightmare. He remembered the incident he must've been reliving. The incidents. Could be any one of a number. He must have been quite young though; by the time he was eleven, twelve, hiding under the bed had largely been replaced by escaping out the window.

At any rate, he'd been lucky. Danny had taken to checking on him. Just because he wasn't waking up didn't mean he didn't know that. And sleeping under the bed would probably be enough to let Danny know that there was still something wrong.

Yawning, he wandered out of his room into the living room, automatically peering into every corner and shadow, just in case. _Why _was there still something wrong? That was what he really couldn't get. Not like the nightmares and the memories had bothered him back home. Well. No more than you'd expect, anyway. Not like this certainly. And he hadn't been so constantly and pointlessly on edge either. Not like now, jumping at every noise, waiting for the next punch, skin crawling with adrenaline.

A shower, he decided. A shower would wake him up a little, cover up the lingering feelings of fear and misery. It'd help.

He caught sight of himself in the mirror, just as he was getting in the shower. No bruises. Still. No injuries. No pain. Nothing. He shivered, almost overwhelmed with the dread and the wrongness.

_(Maybe he just wasn't meant to be safe.) _

It had been nearly two weeks since Danny had found him sitting in the park and brought him home. He'd been led straight to bed, Danny's arm over his shoulders, and he hadn't had to do a thing for himself. If he was being honest, Danny had all but tucked him in. If he was being honest, it really had helped.

The dreams had been little more than frightening, and Danny had been there.

The next day he'd woken up when Danny had brought him coffee cake and cream soda and Cap'n Crunch and hot chocolate with whipped cream, which was about as close to breakfast in bed as they could manage on short notice.

He looked down at it thoughtfully. "It's not my birthday, you know," he pointed out lightly.

Danny sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Rus' - "

" - you want to talk," he interrupted, meeting Danny's eyes easily enough.

"Maybe you _need_ to," Danny said gently. "What's going on?"

He took a long sip of chocolate and Danny leaned forwards to wipe the cream off his lip, and Rusty leaned into the touch unthinkingly. "I don't know," he admitted simply. "Just had a bad few days is all."

He waited, maybe a little hopefully, but Danny looked sceptical and said nothing and the silence was uncomfortable.

The thing was, Danny had been right. They couldn't lie to each other. And normally that was a blessing, and normally the fact that there were no spaces between them was a foundation of reassurance and comfort. Normally it was what he built his world on. Now it was a threat.

He couldn't lie to Danny. He didn't have to. If he was careful, he didn't have to. "I've not been sleeping," he said, and he knew it was stating the obvious.

Danny nodded unsurprised. "More nightmares?"

"Yeah," he agreed and didn't think about the parts that were more than nightmare, about the parts that were waiting for him even when he was awake.

"And you didn't - " Danny began, sounding frustrated.

" - no, I didn't," he interrupted levelly. "They're just dreams, Danny. They can't hurt me."

"They _are_ hurting you," Danny said after a moment.

Rusty shrugged and said nothing, and maybe Danny had a point.

"You can't go on like this." Danny's voice was quiet and pained and Rusty started picking at the coffee cake.

"I feel better this morning," he offered at last, and it was close to true. The nightmares had been less, he'd slept almost a full night and felt physically better for it. And for the rest – Danny was there. Danny was there and immediately the world was a better place. "Maybe it was just one of those things."

"One of those things?" Danny asked, eyebrow raised.

"A phase, or whatever," he said impatiently. "Just a few bad days, Danny. A few nightmares. Maybe it's all just stress over starting school or whatever."

"Stress?" Danny blinked as if he'd never heard the word before. Or at least never thought to apply it to Rusty. "How _is_ school?" he asked hesitantly, and of course he'd asked before, many times before, but this time he seemed to be worried about hearing a different answer.

"It's fine," he assured Danny quickly, and he let a little of the truth seep through.

"Rus'?" Danny prompted gently.

He sighed and looked down. "It's . . .they're all children, Danny. And they've never . . ." He shook his head. "They don't know me. And I'm bored," he added with a twist of a smile. "Too much time to think, maybe."

Danny's hand covered his, and this was a kind of betrayal, he knew it was, and he couldn't do anything else.

And for the next couple of weeks it seemed as though the only times Danny wasn't there were when he was asleep and when he was at school. And being in Danny's company meant that the lie was so much easier to tell. He could look Danny in the eyes and tell him he was fine, because he _was _fine – as long as he was with Danny. They were together and there were rambling conversations and meaningful silences, and movies and take-out, and every moment that passed meant that he was relaxed and safe and happy, and he saw the tension and the worry gradually fade from Danny's eyes.

School was still a problem. He spent the days restless and frightened of nothing and everything, and no one there would ever know it. But when he came home, the feelings were still clinging to him, and it took a couple of moments of Danny's company for him to feel secure again. From Danny's point of view, it probably seemed as though Rusty had taken to sneaking up on him, as he tried to steal those few seconds of silent comfort to get himself under control again. But it was working. That was what mattered.

Sleep was more difficult. The nightmares didn't go away. If anything they got worse. And he needed to hide the physical effects of them – needed to _survive _the physical effects of them. It only took a couple of days of thought and planning, a day of seeing Danny looking at him before he formed a plan. He did his research, chose a couple of doctors carefully, visited them in turn with a tale of woe and got prescribed two different types of sleeping pills. And that worked. As long as he was careful. As long as this didn't go on too long. As long as Danny didn't find out.

Not that they actually stopped the nightmares, of course. They just stopped him waking up. The reality was, he was trapping himself inside his own head, and he was waking up in a mess of fear and panic and adrenaline every morning. But really, he only ever remembered the last dream he'd had, and sometimes not even that. And it wasn't like the alternative was better. Practically speaking, this was by far the best choice he could make.

He was sleeping, he was eating, and, when he was in Danny's company, he was _alive._ Everything else would go away on its own. It had to.

He almost fell out of the shower over an hour after he'd got in. And he did feel better for it. Slightly less wound up.

Opening the bathroom door, he saw Danny standing in Rusty's doorway, a mug of coffee in his hands. He turned and smiled when he saw Rusty.

Rusty smiled back. Of course. "That for me?" he asked, nodding at the coffee.

Danny grinned and pushed it into his hands. "See, I try and be nice, and you're already up for once," he complained and the question in his voice was obvious.

"Woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep," he answered at once.

There was a brief silence. "Nightmare?" Danny asked lightly, at last.

He shrugged. "Don't remember. Guess so."

Frowning, Danny went and retrieved his own coffee from the table. "You want to - "

" - no," he said firmly. "Nothing _to_ talk about."

Danny nodded and sat down on the sofa and Rusty sprawled beside him.

"I'm going out tonight," Danny said at last, and there was something in his voice and Rusty had to suppress the feelings of irritation. _(Anger.) _Really, Danny was asking for permission. Asking if it was all right for him to leave Rusty alone, asking if it was all right for him to have a life outside their own little world. He wasn't_ helpless_. And Danny had gone out three days ago, and he'd been fine then, hadn't he? At any rate, Danny had no way of knowing that he'd spent a lot less time watching television and a lot more time pacing around the confines of their apartment, trying to make the stuff in his head stay inside his head.

He smiled. "Cherie?" he guessed.

"Yeah," Danny admitted. "Not like that though. We spent so much time 'studying' that now we've got hardly any time left to actually do some studying."

Rusty couldn't help but laugh.

Danny scowled. "It's not funny. It's to be done on Friday and we need to figure out a sensible definition of post-post-modernism."

"So good they named it twice," Rusty offered.

"Thanks," Danny shook his head and grinned. "Really, you'll be - "

" - yes!" he said, slightly too forcefully. "I'm not a kid, Danny."

"I know that," Danny said softly. "Think that means I don't worry?"

He knew exactly what it meant. He leaned a little closer to Danny, and their shoulders rubbed together, and Danny sighed and turned on the TV and they watched Sesame Street for a while.

* * *

School was the usual. Purgatory. He sat in class and did his work and tried to stay out of the spiralling, train-wreck of memories that dragged him in. He was never completely successful and sometimes he found himself drifting off, and sometimes he had to bite hard on his lip to remind himself of the need to stay in the present. No one noticed. No one ever noticed. Wasn't _that_ unusual?

But the day passed as normal and he spent time with Jason and Victoria and Aaron and the rest and found himself smiling and weary all at once. They'd forgiven him easily for his little outburst, accepting the excuse of a headache and exhaustion with ease and good humour. None of them saw it as a big deal. None of them saw it like he saw it; a frightening loss of control. None of them knew him.

Victoria had playfully demanded that he make it up to her by taking Rhona out, for some obscure reason. He'd found it easier to comply than to argue or try and understand. There had been a couple of dates. And while he wouldn't say he'd had fun, there'd been a distraction. Too much of a distraction. There'd been eager kisses and urgent touches, that he could lose himself in with ease, and it had taken such an effort to stop himself, such an effort to back away before it all went too far. He could see that it would mean so much more to her than it ever could to him, and even though he'd let her down gently, even though in the end she'd seemed happy to be just friends, he still felt like a complete and utter bastard.

Today though, he stood and watched Andy and Jason engaged in yet another mock fight, the girls cheering them on, Aaron futilely trying to retrieve the gym bag that was for some reason at the heart of the matter. They were fighting, and they were happy, and they were children, and for some reason he was irritated. Angry. They were happy. Only things they'd ever worried about were their grades, or getting a girlfriend, or their parents scolding them. He took a deep breath. He was being unfair. He knew he was being unfair. But they were happy. And he'd bet that they had no idea what it was like to be hungry, what it was like to see a piece of bread that was mouldy right through and eat it like it was the most delicious thing ever made. He'd bet that they didn't know what it was like to be frightened, what it was like to be alone and wait and know what was coming next and still have to face up to it. He'd bet that they didn't know what it was like to be _hurt. _(_Leather and metal biting into skin, nothing beneath his feet and the fist cracks into his jaw again and again and again, lying on the carpet, his back on fire, his hands twitching and agony, not being able to _move . .. )

They had no idea. They had no idea and he was angry, and he wished, just for one day, he wished that . . .

He stopped, sickened at the way he was thinking.

This wasn't him.

* * *

The apartment was dark when he got in and he didn't bother turning on the TV. Or the lights.

He hadn't stopped thinking since he'd left the school and he couldn't stand still. Pacing round the floor, he found himself clenching his fists, tensing with every step, waiting. (_Dad would wait for him in the shadows, sometimes, when he was angry, when he wanted to see fear, when it had been a while and he wanted to make sure he was remembered and he'd step out of the darkness, any minute now, any minute now he'd be here and there'd be pain.) _

Maybe he should just take a couple of pills and go to bed. Unconscious, and he'd be fine. He'd be fine, unless . . . he bit his lip. That was _never _going to happen. Never. He was free. He was safe.

Okay. He took a deep breath. He was itching with the fear and the panic and the adrenaline and the anger. He had to get out of here.

* * *

He strode into the bar like he owned the place, and took a macabre joy in the moment when conversation dimmed and all eyes were on him. There was a swagger in his walk as he approached the bar. Confident. Cocky. Everything he was trying to project.

"Whisky," he nodded to the bartender.

Unsurprisingly, the bartender eyed him suspiciously. "Right," he said sceptically. "ID?"

With a roll of his eyes, he reached into his wallet, pulled out a driving license and casually, disdainfully, thrust it across the bar.

The bartender picked it up and squinted at him and the license in turn. Then he took a closer look at the license. And a closer look at Rusty. "You're nineteen?" he asked amazed.

"Yeah," he said with a weary shrug. "Don't tell me. I look twelve, right?"

"Well," the bartender shook his head. "Damn."

"Just think," he grinned. "When I'm your age I'll still only look forty."

The bartender scowled. "I'm 35," he snarled, pouring the whisky.

Rusty managed to look surprised and tossed over some money before moving to sit at the end of the bar and, trying to look conspicuously inconspicuous, watched the poker game that half of the meagre clientèle were involved in. Six guys. Five dollar stakes. No one was cheating worth a damn.

They caught him looking right when he wanted them to. "Want to join in, kid?" the biggest of them said with a laugh.

He blinked nervously. "Uh, sure," he nodded. "Thanks."

There was heavy laughter and the feeling of anticipation in the air.

Twenty minutes later and he was two hundred dollars up and no one else had won anything. Fuck, but these guys were terrible poker players. They deserved to have all their money taken away. Deserved to lose. He carefully ignored the little Danny-voice that was screaming in his head, demanding to know what he thought he was doing.

He won, spectacularly and unsubtly, and hand by hand, the expressions round the table got uglier and his grin got wider.

"That's it!" one of them growled at last. "You cheating little fucker!"

The anger and adrenaline coursed through him, and he could run still, they'd catch him in the end, but he could run.

He swung back in his chair and looked up at them; all six of them now on their feet, towering over him and the smallest of them was probably the size of two of him. "We got a problem?" he asked lazily.

"You think you're so smart, don't you, you little shit?" the biggest of them snarled.

The echo ran through him, and he grinned savagely. "Yes. Yes I do."

They kicked his chair out from under him, and he sprawled to the floor, but it was a matter of simple instinct to roll in time to avoid the kick, and then he was on his feet, and _he_ swung the first punch.


	4. Chapter 4

**No. Still don't know how long. Sorry. And me and InSilva don't like this fic. Not even a little.**

* * *

It was raining when he woke up. Had been for some time, judging by how soaked he was.

He hurt.

He hurt and he was cold and he was wet, and he was lying face down in the dirt, and he was _cold _and he _hurt._

With a groan he managed to roll over until he was lying on his back. Alleyway. He was lying in the gutter in the alleyway beside the bar. Looked like the bar had closed. Sounded like it too. He must've been out for a while.

(_We're all lying in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars._)

He turned his head and spat out a mouthful of blood and mud.

(_There weren't any stars anyway._)

He hurt and with a sigh he started to check the damage. His face was the worst and, with an explorative hand, he traced over the swollen and the bruised and the crusted, dried blood. They didn't seem to have left much untouched. Felt like his nose had bled. A lot. Fuck, he was lucky they'd dumped him face down. He'd been lying on his back he could easily have choked to death by now. Other than that, nothing so unusual. His neck hurt as if he'd been thrown around a lot. Chest, arms, stomach – he'd be black and blue by now. His ribs ached, but he didn't think anything was cracked or broken. Probably that would hurt a lot more. His knuckles were sore and carefully he brought his hand up in front of his face and blinked. His knuckles were split and bloody. Well. That was different.

On the whole, it was bad but not unliveable with.

His face was the worst . . .

(_Dangling helplessly in the air, held up by his shirt front, by a man he couldn't quite see, couldn't quite focus on, and fists crashed into his face again and again. "Not so smart now, are you?" a coarse voice demanded and he tried to catch his breath, but the blows were coming too fast and his mouth was full of blood. "Not so pretty either."_)

His eyes were squeezed shut and he shook his head slowly. That was . . . that had been . . . that had been now, hadn't it? Not with Dad? He wasn't certain.

But he remembered the bar and he remembered jumping up swinging, and he remembered dodging and men shouting at him, swearing at him, hitting him, and he hadn't cared, he'd been laughing even as he'd been losing and Dad had been standing there, leaning against the bar, bottle of vodka in his hand, toasting him as he fell, as they dragged him off the floor and promised to teach him right from wrong.

No. He shook his head frantically. No, that was wrong. He was confused. Dad hadn't been there; that wasn't possible. Just a bad dream or a stupid trick of memory or something.

He shivered. Nothing to worry about.

Feebly, he patted himself down. No cigarettes. Bastards must have taken them. He frowned. More than just no cigarettes. For the first time he realised that his jacket was missing. _Everything _was missing. They'd stolen his jacket, gone through his jeans pockets, stripped him of everything he had. He supposed he was lucky that they'd left him his clothes. A sudden thought, a realisation, and he wiggled his feet cautiously and bit hard into his lip. He tasted blood. They'd taken his shoes.

(_He was leaning against the doorframe, holding himself up by an effort of will. "Bastard stole my shoes," he said flatly and he watched Danny's expression change._)

He blinked; that definitely wasn't now. Danny had come for him then and . . .

Danny.

With a moan he realised the other thing they'd taken from him. His wallet. The wallet Danny had given him. The gift that Danny had put so much thought into, so much effort into. The wallet with the little compartment with the tools and the lockpicks that Danny had given him last Christmas. Danny had given him it and it had meant . .. it had _been . . . _and he'd _lost _it. He'd let a group of poker-playing thugs take it like it was nothing, like it didn't mean anything to him.

He clenched his fists and slowly, with an effort, pulled himself first up to his knees and then, after a few, tightly swaying moments, forced himself to his feet. It hurt. The wallet wasn't what Danny was going to be worried about. Rusty _knew _what was important to Danny, knew what mattered. Knew what was going to put the the look of utter desolation in Danny's eyes.

He knew what he'd done. He just wasn't sure why he'd done it. Wasn't sure what he'd been thinking. Wasn't sure if he had been thinking. There'd been urgency and desperation and fear and anger, and he'd been spoiling for the fight, desperate for the fight, and it hadn't been about winning or losing. Just been about putting an end to . . . he'd _needed _to . . . he didn't know what he'd been thinking.

Swallowing hard, he leaned against the wall for a long moment before he staggered out of the alley and headed towards home. Really, wasn't as bad as it could have been. He'd had worse. The pain was dealable with. Long as he kept his arm snug round his chest, long as he kept his head down, didn't look at the street lamps, long as he didn't try to walk too fast, long as he stopped to rest often; it really wasn't so bad. Dealable with. What was more annoying was the fact that the pavement was swimming with water and his feet were frozen. Made walking more difficult and sometimes he stumbled. Sometimes he fell. He always got up again.

There were people around of course, and he was aware of curious looks, even some concern. He ignored it. No one he recognised and no one spoke to him. Thankfully.

By the time he reached home he was exhausted and shaking and his whole body was alive with pain, the ache and the burning gnawing on his every nerve. He was done.

Stupidly, he stood in front of the door and reached into his jeans pocket. No key. No keys and no lockpick. Cursing himself, he knocked loudly and prepared himself.

No answer.

Danny wasn't home yet.

No keys and no lockpick and no answer _(no Danny)_ and bizarrely, inexplicably, for a moment he thought he was going to start crying.

He bit his tongue. No sense in that. Wouldn't help anything. It never helped anything. He had to think; there'd been an old sofa dumped on the side of the road half a block away. Probably that would do the trick. Even if it meant heading out into the cold and the rain again.

Half a block seemed longer than it should have been, and by the time he was kneeling in front of the sofa, prising loose the upholstery, digging out a piece of wire spring, he was feeling tired enough that just falling asleep on the sofa almost seemed like a good idea. Not quite though, and he staggered all the way back, thinking of nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other, until he was standing outside the front door again, and this time the wire was in his hand and slowly and clumsily he fumbled at the lock and he was almost surprised when the door swung open.

The apartment was cold and dark and he shut the door behind him and stumbled through to the bathroom. Really, all he wanted to do was fall into bed and not get up again for a few months, but he'd feel so much worse if he went to bed still chilled and bloody. Better to take care of himself first.

Peeling off his wet clothes, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. As he'd expected, his face was a mess, raw and swollen and ugly, his chest and stomach were black and blue, smeared with blood, and he could see red finger marks on his upper arms where he'd been held. Bruised and bloodied and marked and damaged.

_(He looked like himself again.)_

Throwing the water on, he practically fell into the shower and did his best to get himself cleaned up. Nice to be able to do this with hot water.

After his shower, he managed to splash some antiseptic on anything that looked like it might need it, shoved band-aids on anything that looked like it might bleed and crawl into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. One of Danny's t-shirts. Just because that's what had been lying around. No deeper meaning.

Then he fell into bed and slept peacefully for the first time in five weeks.

* * *

Morning came and he woke up in pain but warm and comfortable, and somehow the two things together meant something close to safety.

His face was throbbing. His chest hurt when he breathed. There was a sharp pinch in his neck and shoulder that threatened consequences if he moved around too much. Nothing to be overly worried about and, with a carefully stifled groan, he managed to sit up, swing his legs over the side of the bed, and shuffle upright.

There was noise coming from the living room and he closed his eyes shut for a long moment. Danny.

With a deep breath, he pushed his bedroom door open and stepped out into the living room. Danny was in the kitchen area, making coffee, his back to Rusty. "You're up late," he called out cheerfully, without looking round. "Was just going to come wake you."

He didn't say anything. Didn't even think anything.

Danny continued talking after a second. "You want to do something this weekend? I was thinking we could take a stroll up to the Diamond District, see if anything . . . " he trailed off sharply. And Rusty could see, could tell just by looking, just by the tension in Danny's back, that somehow, something in the tone of the silence had caught his attention. "Rus'?" Danny breathed.

Still, he said nothing. Couldn't think of anything to say. Couldn't think of anything to tell Danny, anything that would make this better.

Danny turned round slowly, and Rusty winced when the coffee cup hit the floor.

Instantly, impossibly, Danny was standing in front of him, his hands gently cupping Rusty's face, comfort and love and fear in every touch, searching, studying, picking out each and every injury with the ease of long-practice, his eyes alight with familiar horror and misery. "What happened?" he demanded frantically. "Rus', what the fuck happened?"

He swallowed painfully. "Danny, oh, Danny, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Never mind that," Danny told him gently, leading him over to the sofa and getting him sitting down. "What happened?"

He couldn't lie. "There was . . . I was . . . " He couldn't tell Danny the truth either. "They took my wallet," he said helplessly. "And my jacket, and my keys and . . . they stole my shoes, Danny."

The echo hit Danny; he saw it, he hated it. And he'd used it.

"Rus' . . . " There was agony on Danny's face and he clenched his fists and turned away for a moment. "Who?" he demanded, all the fury in the world in his voice.

He couldn't bear this. Really, really, couldn't bear what he was doing. What he'd already done. He swallowed. "Didn't know them. There were six of them."

"Kids?" Danny asked sharply, turning back to face him, his eyes wild.

"Adults," he admitted.

Danny closed his eyes and Rusty could see the shudder of rage, the shadow of the unthinking, could see the desire, need, to find, to hurt, to punish, and he had to distract Danny before it went any further.

"They stole my wallet," he said again, quiet and miserable.

Opening his eyes quickly, Danny looked at him and got it immediately, and with a sigh, he was sitting beside Rusty, his hand stroking Rusty's hair. "I'll get you another one," he promised. Gently he reached out, tilted Rusty's head towards him, his fingers tracing over Rusty's battered face. "We should - "

" - I don't need a doctor, Danny," he said firmly.

Danny didn't look convinced.

"Really," he insisted. "If this had happened at home we'd - " He stopped. Winced. And he could see the memories playing out over Danny's face.

(_He was lying on a couch and it smelt of vodka and blood and Danny was kneeling beside him, pressing a cold compress to his cheek, talking light inconsequentialities and the old anger and helplessness beneath his words were barely audible. "Apparently Mom had the dining room painted last weekend. Do me a favour, huh? When we get our own place, let's make sure it's not painted orange. _

_A dribble of water ran down his neck and he grimaced. He smiled happily up at Danny. "When we get our own place, let's make sure it's got a freezer. Will make this a lot easier."_

_To his bewilderment, Danny's hand convulsed and he stood up, dropping the cold compress somewhere along the way, taking a shaky step backwards. "_What did you say?" _Danny demanded in a whisper and his face was still and blank and frightened._

_Rusty frowned. "I was just saying ice packs are better, that's all. Drier too."_

_There was a moment of rage and misery and despair and futility, but when Danny spoke his voice his voice was calm and gentle. "When we get our own place we won't need to do this anymore. When we get our own place, no-one's going to hit you. You're not going to be hurt. No more beatings. No more pain." Danny's eyes were wild and his voice was desperate. "Rus'? Tell me you understand that?"_

"_Of course I do," he said after a long moment and he could hear the tremble in his voice. _

_Danny stared at him. "That's it. We're leaving. Now.")_

He could see Danny trembling. "I promised. I promised you. I said - "

" - no," he interrupted frantically. "No, Danny, it wasn't your - "

" - I wasn't _there_," Danny whispered, and Rusty couldn't even begin to explain that it wouldn't have mattered, that Danny couldn't be there all the time, that if Danny had been there it would have happened another time. "I wasn't there, Rus' - "

" - you didn't do anything, Danny," he promised wearily. "It was me, it was all me, I . . . "

He stopped at the look on Danny's face, at the pain and the disbelief, and then Danny's arms were tight around his shoulders and he felt something relax inside him as Danny kissed his hair. "It's not your fault, Rus'," Danny whispered insistently. "It's not."

He lay against Danny's chest and for a while he was safe and for a while there was nothing to be frightened of.

* * *

**Thanks for reading. Hope you thought it was okay.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Eventually nearly everything gets updated.**

* * *

Four days. Four days of bliss and peace and contentment. Four days when he felt as calm and as unruffled as he should be. Four days when his body ached and his mind was clear. Four days without memories, four days without dreams.

Four days when Danny was the one hurting and afraid. Four days when Danny was the one whose world was suddenly unsafe. Four days when Danny was the one tortured by the past; every time he looked at Rusty, every time he saw, the shadow of older times crossed his face. Four days.

They both stayed home. Rusty had to of course. Even with Danny's daily phone calls sketching out the progress of what sounded like a particularly unpleasant bout of flu, there was always a chance of investigation and discovery and social services, but that risk was _nothing_ compared to what would happen if he went to school looking like this. They didn't know him here. He hadn't bothered to set up the reputation for lying and clumsiness that he had back home. (_Should he?_) And Ms Lipinski had already been curious. They would think someone was hurting him. They would think _Danny _was hurting him, and the wrong and the absurd and the _impossible_ had cut through them both in the same instant, joint misery reflected in an unvoiced thought. He'd been so _stupid_.

He stayed off school and Danny didn't go into college. He would have argued with that, if he hadn't already known he would lose. Could see it in Danny's eyes even as the thought crossed his mind, could see the incredulity at the idea that Danny would ever want to be anywhere else.

Four days and they stayed home and he let himself heal and he let Danny check him over. Let Danny deal with the injuries as best he could and he felt so damned guilty every time that Danny looked at him. Every time he saw the haunted look in Danny's eyes. And he couldn't tell Danny the truth. Couldn't let Danny know he'd picked the fight, that he'd gone out looking for the fight, that he'd practically _asked _for this. Because what did that say about him? Guilty and ashamed and he still took such comfort in Danny's company and the familiar routine of movies/popcorn/hot chocolate. So fucking selfish. And of course he took even more comfort in the sight of the bruises, and the pain that hit him every time he moved, and the irrational knowledge that the worst had already happened and he was safe for the moment.

And that was really stupid. More than that, that was _insane. _Dad hadn't given him these bruises and it wasn't like he'd stop just because Rusty was already hurt. Like that time he'd got beat up for lifting that guy's wallet. The sight of him, already battered and pathetic, hadn't stopped Dad, had it? Quite the opposite, in fact. Dad had taken one look at him and had rightly decided that he must have done _something _to earn those bruises and he'd been only too happy to add to the punishment.

He always got hurt worse when Dad thought he'd done something wrong. Not that he was necessarily sure just what that meant. Or even whether it meant anything at all. But it was at its worst when there was something behind it.

But the point was, these bruises didn't mean he was safe at all. They wouldn't stop Dad. They weren't evidence of anger worked out, frustrations handled. _He _hurt, but from Dad's point of view it had still been a long time, and the beating would be just as bad as if he didn't have a mark on him.

All this proved was that he was stupid.

And yet he did feel safe. And he did sleep peacefully.

Four days, and on Friday night he was curled on the sofa, eating Danny's egg foo yung. Which was only because Danny had tried a little of his chow mein and had subsequently absolutely refused to give it back. Which might have been because Rusty had stolen Danny's spring roll. Which might have been because Danny had stolen the remote. It was difficult to say how these things got started, but the fact remained that there were prawn crackers scattered all over the floor and wine in the wun tun soup.

He almost managed to forget that Danny shouldn't be here. Almost managed to forget that it was Friday night and they were young, and by all rights they should be out enjoying themselves – Danny should be out enjoying himself – instead of being stuck in here, watching TV and getting older. Even if they were having fun.

Danny's eyes were fixed on the TV screen. "You know, if I was on the run from the law - "

" - and let's try to avoid that - " Rusty cut in, without looking round from the car chase.

" - sure," Danny agreed easily, "But if I was, I think we'd want to drive something a little less conspicuous."

Rusty paused. "They like their car." He wasn't going to get into an argument about whether it was a classic or not – he could still remember Buzz and Danny almost coming to blows ostensibly over the merits of Starsky's Gran Torino. There'd been more to it than that, but he'd pretended not to know.

"Sentimental value?" Danny mused.

"I suppose," he shrugged.

"It'd have to be, really," Danny nodded thoughtfully, watching them dive for cover. "The doors don't open."

Rusty paused. "Think that's the point."

"Mmmm," Danny smiled and for a while they watched the TV in silence, and even the exploding arrows got barely more than an exchange of amused looks. "You're looking better," Danny commented at last.

"Thanks, I think." Rusty said, his voice full of irony.

Danny sighed. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah." He did. The bruises were fading, as they always did. He could go for hours at a time without even noticing the pain. Almost back to normal. (_Back to abnormal._)

"Going back to school on Monday?" Danny asked.

"Guess so." He had to, really. By Monday morning there'd be nothing left that couldn't be explained away, even if someone happened to notice. Probably he'd have to write himself a note for gym, but really he didn't have a problem with that.

Danny nodded. "You ready to tell me what's bothering you?" His voice was casual, but he was looking at Rusty, and Rusty could feel the intensity.

He didn't look away from the TV. "Isn't she his cousin?" he frowned.

"Rusty." Danny's voice was quiet. Pleading.

Rusty hardened his heart. "What?" he demanded lightly. "It's bothering me."

Danny sighed, and to Rusty's relief, he let it go. "Wonder if you can make a car jump like that in real life," he pondered.

"And hang in the air?" Rusty shook his head. "Unlikely."

* * *

The footsteps woke him up. Footsteps. Coming from the hallway outside the apartment. Loud and echoing and ominous, coming closer and closer. He couldn't move. Couldn't move a muscle. Couldn't make a sound. All he could do was lie absolutely still, hold his breath and hope against hope that the footsteps would keep going. That the bell wasn't tolling for him.

The noise got closer to the front door and the footsteps started to slow and they were _too_ loud now, surely, too loud to belong to anything human, and they stopped right outside the apartment, and he would swear he could hear breathing.

For a long, long moment there was silence and he clenched his fists, bit his lip and _wished, _and then he heard the front door explode inwards and an impossible fraction of a second later his bedroom door was kicked in and Dad was leaning over him, his eyes bright and triumphant, his hands tight round Rusty's throat, squeezing and choking, and with a jerk Rusty was thrown out of bed and his head smashed off the floor with a dull, dead thud. Still he couldn't move. Even when Dad gripped his hair hard and pulled him all the way up onto his feet, further, so that he was standing on the very tips of his toes, looking up into Dad's face, still he couldn't move. Couldn't do anything but hang there limply and try to keep the tears from falling.

"Found you," Dad said softly. "I found you, you little bastard. Did you really think you could escape?"

Yes. No. He'd _tried._

"Did you really think that you could get away?" Dad went on, shaking him back and forth, and the blood was pounding through his head. "Did you think you could run away and play house with your little friend and everything would be better?"

Dad let go and he stumbled, trying to keep his balance, and the punch caught him stupidly unaware, and he sprawled to the floor in an ungainly heap, pain blossoming in his jaw.

If he called, Danny would hear. If he called . . . but he couldn't find his voice, and when he opened his mouth to try and shout, all that came out was a soft, frightened whimper.

"Fucking coward," Dad remarked pleasantly, punctuating his words with a series of kicks to Rusty's back and chest. He tried to curl up tightly, tried to block it all out, but he couldn't, couldn't move, couldn't do anything other than lie still and let Dad do whatever he wanted. "Fucking crybaby. Thought you could walk away, didn't you?" He kicked Rusty's shoulder hard, pushed him over, forced him onto his back. He lay there and blinked up at Dad helplessly. "_Listen to me, you little shit!"_ Dad bellowed suddenly, and the shout echoed round the room, the apartment, the building, but no one ever came to help him.

"You're my son. You're your mother's son. And we're all you'll ever be. You can't escape that. You can't escape us. You hearing me?" His foot was on Rusty's chest, the toe of his boot nestling flat against Rusty's throat, and he was pushing downwards, and Rusty could hear, feel, something breaking in his chest, and he couldn't breathe. "You listening to me, you little shit? You understand me?" The foot pressed harder and he struggled weakly, but it was like trying to fight off . . . it was like _exactly _what it was. It was him trying to fight his dad and he was never, ever going to win. "Answer me!" Dad snarled and he could taste blood at the back of his throat. "Do you understand?"

"Yes!" he choked out, and he could only hope that would be enough.

"Say it then," Dad demanded. "Look me in the eyes and tell me that you know that I'm the best you have to look forward to." The boot dug into his throat. "Or do you want to end up like your mom instead?"

"No." He was never going to say it. Never going to be them. He and Danny were going to find something else. He'd _promised._

"Say it," Dad repeated and the pain was worse and he couldn't breathe, and it was getting harder to see, harder to think. "Say it or I'll kill you here and let your little friend find the body before it's his turn."

_Danny._

"I . . ." he stuttered. "I'm never going to be . . . " The pain in his chest was worse and he couldn't get the breath to finish the sentence, and he was going to die, and Danny, and he couldn't, wasn't, and Dad had won, Dad had . . .

He woke up tangled in a huddle of twisted sheets and cold sweat, his fists shoved hard against his mouth, his knuckles red and raw with angry teeth marks.

A dream. It had been a dream. Dad didn't know where he was. He was safe. He was . . .he . . . _Dad didn't know where he was._ If Dad came into the apartment now, he wouldn't know which room Rusty was in. Suppose he went into Danny's room first? Suppose he found Danny first, hurt Danny first? He couldn't let that happen. Couldn't let Danny be hurt by Dad. That would be the worst, far worse than anything that Dad could do just to him. He had to protect Danny. Had to make sure that Dad would see him first, would hurt him and not bother with Danny. Had to make sure that the punishment didn't go beyond him, didn't go where it never should.

(_Like when Dad had been looking for him and Danny had been there, and he'd shoved Danny back, and with a look he'd made Danny promise, promise to be still and silent and not-even-there, no matter what, no matter what he heard, and afterwards Danny's face had been streaked with angry tears, and he'd been so sorry and so thankful, and for years afterwards, in his nightmares, Danny opened the door and rushed out, fury and desperation and love that neither of them understood, and with that moment of understandable stupidity would have come the end of their world.)_

He had to protect Danny.

Creeping silently into the living room, he curled up across an armchair. The one directly opposite the door. Dad would see him here. Dad would see him here and with any luck Dad would just hit him a couple of times before dragging him away, and Danny would never even know what had happened.

He settled down, as close to comfort as he could manage.

The rest of the nightmares were memories.

He woke up for the last time a little before dawn and snuck back through to his room. Danny would never know.

After that he stopped sleeping. Coffee and caffeine pills and optimism and blind terror worked just as well.

Nightmares and memories and phantoms, oh my.

He existed, and the gulf between reality and the world behind his eyes got a little wider every moment of every day. Bruises faded over time. Injuries healed and nothing took their place. Nothing was left in their place. He lost himself, and every noise and every movement was a threat, and Dad was looking for him, was going to find him, could be, would be, behind every corner and in every shadow.

Anger and fear and confusion, utter exhaustion and his most pressing concern was to hide it all, from the world and from Danny.

Perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise when, after four days, he got suspended for attacking Toby Winter in the cafeteria.

* * *

**Seemed like a good place to leave it. **


	6. Chapter 6

**Figured this chapter would be done this time last week. I was wrong. And then I got caught up in writing worser things. Anyway. Hope you like.**

* * *

Early morning and the world was misty. Unless it was just him. Probably it was just him; he was indoors. School cafeteria. Getting another coffee before class.

Everything was happening in slow motion and he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him.

He'd been out the apartment before Danny was even awake that morning. Five o'clock. He'd walked into school instead of waiting for the bus. Had a cup of coffee. Taken a handful of caffeine pills. Scribbled something that approximated history homework. Had another cup of coffee. Black and bitter, exactly the way he didn't like it. Another cup of coffee and he'd pretended he couldn't see the suspicious look the lunch lady was giving him. Pretended he wasn't constantly looking over his shoulder, knowing that sooner or later, the next time, Dad would be there.

Last night, after he'd managed to escape Danny's questions and concerns and sideways glances by pretending to need an early night, he'd spent seven hours making card towers. Over and over and over. Picking them up every time they fell. Trying again. Trying different ways of fighting for stability. Over and over. For seven hours. It wasn't easy; his hands had been shaking constantly for a couple of days now.

Danny checked on him. A couple of times. Each time he was able to get into bed in time. The first time, Danny pretended to believe he was asleep. And the second time, well. All it took was pointing out that _Danny_ wasn't sleeping either. They talked for a few minutes about the nightmares in 'An American Werewolf in London'. Winning didn't always mean a happy ending. He hadn't mentioned 'Carrie'. And they didn't talk about the fear in their eyes. Even after Danny left, troubled but appeased for the moment, Rusty could still feel the comforting weight of Danny's hand on his shoulder. He felt a little better. He went back to making his card towers. (_Listened out for Dad. Waited for pain._)

He kind of wished he'd brought the cards with him. It would have given him something to look at other than his coffee stirrer.

"Hey, kid. Move over, will you? You're taking up the whole table." Billy Brown, Toby Winter and a few other seniors he didn't know were standing over him, looking bored and fed up.

A flicker of irritation ran through him. He'd been here first. He'd been here all fucking morning. And he _didn't_ want to share his space and he _didn't _want anyone anywhere near him. But the cafeteria was pretty full now. Wasn't like there was anywhere else for the boys to sit. And more importantly he didn't get angry about things like this. He just didn't. It wasn't him.

Sighing he moved over. They sat down and started talking loudly and enthusiastically about some party or something. He did his best to ignore them.

(_Dad's friends were over and the room was thick with smoke and laughter. He was trying to be good. He was trying so hard to be good. He was doing everything they told him to. Running to fetch anything they wanted. Pouring drinks and making snacks. Anything they wanted. So far it was going well. So far he didn't hurt too much._

_He brought Joe the spoon he asked for, practically sprinting back from the kitchen, and he stood in front of Joe, spoon held out in front of him, staring down at the stains on the carpet. "Thanks, boy," Joe said, grabbing his chin roughly and forcing him to look up. He wrenched himself free and took a quick step back, trying to keep the fear from his eyes. Joe laughed. "Your boy don't say much, does he Robert?"_

"_Not for a month now," Dad grunted smugly._

_Joe laughed louder "Aw, was he a mama's boy? You miss your mama, boy?"_

_He shook his head quickly and almost truthfully. He didn't miss Mom. He just wished she hadn't left._

_Laughing, Joe grabbed his chin again, tilting his head from side to side, gazing into his eyes. "Not much going on in there, is there? He slow in the head or what?"_

"_He's a useless, fucking moron," Dad said, disgust in his voice. "Got his mother's brains." _

_Joe smiled a smile full of rotted teeth, and squeezed Rusty's face a little tighter, looked at him a little closer. "Pretty little boy, though." _

_Dad snorted. "He got her looks too. If he'd been a girl he'd have some hope in life. As it is, he's a waste of space."_

_Joe's hand started rubbing through his hair roughly. _

"_Fuck's sake, Joe. Just get what you want from him will you?" Dad demanded irritably._

"_Right," Joe grinned. "Get me a belt, boy."_

_He hesitated. Glanced towards the door, wondering if he might be able to run away before the pain. But Lance and Vinnie were actually leaning on it. No escape. He was completely trapped._

"_Didn't you hear me, boy?" Joe scowled, dragging Rusty closer to him, shaking him slightly. "I said get me a belt."_

_He shook his head minutely._

_In an instant Dad was there and the punch caught him in the chest, and he fell on the floor hard. "Someone asks you to do something, you do it. Understand, shithead?" _

_He stared up at Dad._

_Dad's eyes were focused dead on him. "There are belts in my wardrobe. Get one."_

_Defeated, he crawled to his feet and ran through to his parents room, trying not to hear the laughter behind him. Then he tried not to notice that Mom's clothes were gone from the wardrobe, and he found a black leather belt and took a moment, an eyesclosed deepbreaths pleasenoplease wantDanny wantDanny_please_ kind of moment, and then the weakness faded and he walked out of the bedroom and gave the belt to Joe. And stood. And waited._

_Joe paused in the act of rolling up his sleeve and stared at Rusty. And the laughter came again. "You think I'm going to hit you with this, don't you, boy? Don't you?"_

_Rusty looked up sharply and with a harsh crack and a knifecut of pain, the leather lashed into his cheek._

"_Well? Did you think I was going to hit you, boy?" Joe demanded, _

"_Watch it, Joe," Dad growled. "He's going back to school in a couple of weeks."_

_Next week. Not that it mattered._

_Joe just laughed and took a step towards Rusty, towering over him, brandishing the belt, light shining in his eyes."Come here, boy," he crooned._

_He couldn't help himself. He stumbled backwards, and he fell against the table, and bottles and glasses and tinfoil wrappers and little brown packets, fell, scattered, shattered. He froze. The room was silent._

"_I'm going to make you wish you'd never been born, you little shit," Dad hissed, and he couldn't run fast enough and he knew it was his fault . . . _

_It wasn't his fault._

It hadn't been.)

He shouldn't have been in that place, shouldn't have been living that life, it . . . it wasn't _fair. _

It wasn't fair, and he was whining like a spoiled child, and then Toby Winter, in the midst of a conversation about beer kegs, threw his arms wide and knocked over Rusty's coffee and agitation and anger roared through him, and he turned round. "Fucking be careful," he snarled.

Toby blinked at him. "Sorry," he said, with exaggerated politeness.

He tensed, unfamiliar aggression screaming in his head. "Yeah, right," he muttered caustically.

"What, you want to make something of it?" Toby laughed, standing up, making it obvious just how much taller than Rusty he was. "You really want to fight me, boy?"

Rusty launched himself up and out of his chair, catching Toby by surprise, punching and keeping punching, and it took all of Toby's friends to drag him off.

* * *

Anger had faded. Adrenaline had worn off. He was left, exhausted and afraid and slightly nauseous, sitting outside Ms Lipinski's office, across the hallway from Toby, feeling stupid and small, desperately trying to figure out what he should be doing next.

Toby's mom was in the office now. With Ms Lipinski. And with Danny.

He couldn't bear to think about that.

Toby's mom had arrived in a whirlwind of righteous fury, and when she'd seen her son, nose still bloody, lip split, face swelling, when she'd seen _that_ she'd started yelling and he couldn't blame her. Then she'd started screaming that Rusty's father be called right away. And Ms Lipinski had reassured her he was on his way.

For a moment, still fighting for even the illusion of self-control, he'd been terrified. Scared out of all rationality, scared beyond all reason. Then Ms Lipinski had clarified that she'd meant his guardian. That she'd meant Danny.

He hadn't known how to feel about that.

It had been another twenty minutes before Danny had arrived, fear hidden behind composure, apprehension hidden behind understanding. He'd looked Rusty over, taking in the new bruise on his cheek and the marks on his arms where they'd grabbed him, and his eyes had been full of questions that Rusty couldn't answer. There'd been a moment and Danny had closed his eyes and then the mask had been there, full strength. He'd greeted Toby's mom and Ms Lipinski politely. Refused to let them treat him like a kid.

He and Toby had been asked to tell the story first. Toby had stuck rigidly to the truth. Why shouldn't he? _He_ hadn't done anything wrong. And Rusty had been aware of Danny sitting beside him, hearing unbelievable truth and not knowing how to deal with it. His turn and he hadn't known what to say. He couldn't lie. Too many witnesses. _(And he'd been bad.) _He couldn't lie and he didn't know the truth, so he'd stumbled through shame and apology and guilt and confusion and hoped for the best.

Then he and Toby had been sent out of the office to wait while the adults argued. It took a while. It took a long while. He didn't look at Toby. (_Ashamed of his handiwork._) He sat on the chair and scuffed his toes and waited

Eventually the door opened. Eventually Toby's mom was glaring at him. Eventually Ms Lipinski was telling him how disappointed she was, and that he was suspended for the rest of the week. Eventually Danny's hand was on his shoulder, and he knew all about bewilderment and disbelief and overwhelming fear, and he still couldn't look at Danny, and he heard the sigh and stared at his shoes.

Blindly, he followed Danny out of the school and all the way home.

* * *

The door closed behind him. He walked past Danny and leaned against the window, staring out into the street below.

Danny was looking at him. He gripped the window sill tightly and resolutely didn't look round.

"I told them that you were still sick from last week," Danny began suddenly. "That you weren't yourself. That you'd come back to school before you were ready."

"Oh," he said vaguely, when a couple of moments had passed.

"Think it'll be okay," Danny went on, talking too fast and talking too much. "Had to do a lot of talking. But no one mentioned social services. And I managed to talk them out of sending you to the school counsellor. They are going to be keeping an eye on you though. We need to be careful."

"Right," he agreed flatly.

"She said you'd walked out of class a few weeks ago. I managed to bluff her into thinking I knew that." The question hung in the air.

"I didn't tell you," he said, staring at the people below.

"Right," Danny said after a moment. "Right."

He still didn't look round. But he raised his voice. "You think I should have? You think I should have told you all about it like they wanted me to, get you to sign the little slip to say you'd punished me appropriately? That you were ready to be called every time I fuck up? That - "

" - Rus'." Danny's voice was pained. "Forget the act. I don't care what they think. I'm not your guardian, we both know that. I'm . . . this is _me_ talking to _you_."

"I beat up the kid, Danny," he said remotely.

There was silence. He didn't look round. Could picture Danny standing there, biting his lip, staring at him.

"I beat him up," he said again. "Everything he said was true. He spilt my coffee; I tried to kill him."

"Rus' . . . " Danny sighed.

"You _saw_ him, Danny. I did that. I did that and I don't know _why."_

Danny was standing behind him and he shrugged off the comfort in an instant.

There was a pause.

"There must have - " Danny began.

" - there wasn't," he interrupted. "There really wasn't. I was just so _angry _and I couldn't stand it and I lost my temper and . . .oh, _Danny_," His voice dissolved into fear and bewilderment and when he turned round Danny's arms were already around him, Danny was promising everything, promising they'd figure it out, they'd deal with it, they'd make it all right. Promising _now _and _together _and _forever_ and _always._

The intercom buzzer rang. They ignored it. They stayed standing together for a long moment, drawing comfort against confusion and gradually the trembling faded in both of them.

"Right," Danny began as they finally stood apart. "The first thing we need to think about here is - "

There was a sudden banging at the door. Rusty managed to bury his instinctive reaction. Danny wasn't quite quick enough to keep the flash of fear off his face.

Rusty laid a hand on his arm and looked at him with concerned inquiry. Danny offered a slight, reassuring smile that said he thought he was being silly. Unconvinced, Rusty stepped back and watched as Danny looked out the spyhole. He turned back to Rusty. "Cherie," he hissed.

Rusty blinked.

"She was with me when . . . she was with me when I got called out of class." The awkward hesitation told Rusty everything about that moment of sudden and unexpected and worry and fear and imagination. He had no doubt that Danny had spent an eternity picturing the worst. And the worst that Danny could imagine was always a little darker than anyone else.

Still he could see that Danny didn't want to open the door. "She'll want to know that you're okay," he pointed out.

After a second Danny sighed and nodded slowly. "Five minutes," he proposed and Rusty's smile showed agreement.

He vanished into his bedroom just as Danny opened the door and Cherie's anxious voice rang out behind him. "Oh, Danny, is everything okay? How's your cousin, did he - "

The bedroom door closed behind him and he lay on the bed and concentrated on breathing steadily and watched the hands on his watch go round. His head hurt a little. Exhaustion and too much emotion. He resisted the urge to grab a couple of sleeping pills out of his drawer. Sleep sounded almost irresistable and he _couldn't. _Daren't. Every time he closed his eyes he could see Dad walking up the stairs towards their apartment, and it didn't _matter_ that he knew it was irrational, the only thing that mattered was being ready for when Dad found him. Them. He dry-swallowed a couple of caffeine pills instead.

Five minutes exactly and he stood up again and went to go and give Danny a reason to say goodbye to Cherie, so they could carry on with their conversation.

The moment he opened the door he could hear Cherie's voice, concerned and comforting.

"I'm sure it's just a phase he's going through," she was telling Danny, reassurance dripping from every word. "Really, I wouldn't worry about him. Adolescence is a tricky time. Teenage hormones. It's all perfectly normal. Nothing to worry about. You should have seen what my parents went through with my brother. The best thing to do is set clear boundaries, stand well back and pat him on the head when he's finished throwing his little temper tantrum."

Obviously neither of them had heard the door open. Danny was standing with his back to it and Cherie only had eyes for Danny. He took a step further into the room and the anger was burning through him, burning him. Cherie looked up with an expression of mild guilt and embarrassment. Danny turned round and his eyes widened and then he was offering all the things Rusty could expect; reassurance and love and calm understanding. Silently talking Rusty down from the distant plateau of unthinkable rage.

It wasn't working. He felt disconnected from himself. Remote. As if he was somehow standing outside himself, watching. "You talking about me behind my back now, Danny?"

Danny blinked disbelievingly, stared at him, as if he was searching for the act that wasn't there. "Rus', I - " he began, but Rusty wasn't able to listen to explanations.

" - when you and your girlfriend here have finished deciding exactly what's wrong with me, and exactly how to fix me, perhaps you'd be good enough to let me know? Thanks." He strode towards the door and flung it open.

"Rusty!" Danny pleaded.

"Fuck off, Danny," he spat and he was gone and running.

Just before the door slammed shut he heard Cherie say with shocked triumph. "That is _exactly _what I was talking about."

* * *

It was thirty seconds before he knew he was an idiot but thirty _minutes_ before he calmed down enough to stop running. The emotions rippling through him – anger and fear and guilt and embarrassment – made keeping moving essential. He tried to outrun his thoughts. Didn't exactly work, and eventually, exhausted, he collapsed into a doorway hidden behind some trash bins, and hugged his knees to his chest.

How could he be this stupid? Really, how was that even _possible?_

Danny hadn't been talking about him. Danny had not been talking about him. There was no way in which that was remotely possible. And certainly Danny would never dismiss him like that. Would never demean him like that. And he really couldn't believe that he'd ever _think _that of Danny. Shuddering, he imagined how Danny must be feeling. Hell.

But it was even worse than that. He could remember the scene exactly and in his memories he saw that details that the irrational had hidden from him the first time through. The tension in the way that Danny had been standing. The expression on his face when he'd turned round _before_ he'd fully seen Rusty. Frustration. Misery. Helpless anger. All carefully hidden from everyone else. That wasn't Danny listening to someone gossip. That was Danny listening to Juliet Darcey. That was Danny after the bastard Attwood. That was Danny counting down the seconds until he lost it completely. That was Danny at the point where Rusty would step in, calm him down, lead him away and remind him about all the ways in which they could not be hurt. All the together which made them invulnerable.

And instead he'd screamed at Danny. Sworn at Danny. Hurt Danny. _Hurt __Danny._

He wondered if Cherie might have a point. Could all of this – the anger, at least, the fights, the irritable and the not-sleeping – could all of it be nothing more than a normal teenage phase? People did get them. Hormones, and aggressive and moody weren't so very unusual. And it wasn't like he had any better answers.

Sighing, he let his head fall back against the doorway and his eyes driffted closed. It was a comforting sort of answer too. Something normal. Something that he'd grow out of. Fuck, he was tired.

He wasn't sure if he'd actually dropped off to sleep but suddenly there was a moment of pain as something slammed into him and he fell off the doorstep and there was someone yelling - "_Hey! You! You can't sleep here!" - _and he'd lifted his head and blinked dazedly up at the doorway and there was an impression of bulk and anger and he was up and running before he'd even started thinking.

The voice was still behind him, still shouting, as he ran down the alley, leaping and stumbling over everything in his path, panicked and breathing too hard, and he saw the brightness at the end of the alley, and then the sunlight was obscured and he ran full tilt into Dad.

It was like crashing headlong into a brick wall, and he fell backwards and there was a grunt of pain above him, and Dad was towering over him, and his breathing was loud and terrified and he curled tightly into himself, shielding his face as much as he could, desperate to make himself into as small a target as possible, and, resigned and shaking, he waited for the pain.

"What's your hurry?" Dad demanded. "What are you running away from, eh?"

Pain. He was running away from pain and fear and violence and everything he didn't want to be, and he'd known he couldn't, he'd _known._

"He was sleeping in my doorway," the angry voice from before chimed in. "I gave him what for and he ran."

He curled up even tighter, knowing how Dad would hear that, knowing how Dad hated it when he drew attention to himself, and still there'd been no punches and no kicks, no pain at all, and he wished that Dad would just get started, wished that Dad would get on with it, lay into him and get it over with.

"That's _it?"_ Dad demanded. "Fuck." He drew the word out, disgusted, and Rusty couldn't help but flinch and his body was shaking with the desperate effort to breathe, and he couldn't get enough air, and his lungs were burning.

Dad got closer. "Hey. Kid. Son? Can you hear me? It's all right, okay? You're safe. No-one's going to hurt you."

Distantly he could hear a whimpering noise. Someone almost sobbing with fear and panic.

"No-one's going to hurt you," Dad said, repeating the impossible lie. A hand was gently placed on his shoulder and he cried out and cringed away. The hand was taken away immediately. "Listen to my voice. You're safe, son. You're safe. You want to try opening your eyes and sitting up?"

He didn't know exactly what it was. The gentle tone, perhaps. The hand being removed because it made him uncomfortable. The lack of pain. Dad calling him 'son' when it was the very last way he ever thought of Rusty. Something was desperately wrong and he had a feeling it was him.

Carefully – very, very carefully, inch by inch, bracing himself for pain with every tiny movement – he uncurled and sat up.

"That's good," Dad said encouragingly. "That's good, son. Now I think you're having some kind of panic attack. What I want you to do is take deep breaths and look round slowly and tell me if you know where you are? Can you see the street?"

Obediently he looked round and the pain in his chest slowly eased as his breathing slowed. He was sat collapsed in the mouth of an alley. The streets around him were familiar and he focused on the brightly painted sign over the drugstore, the peeling paint on the cobblers, the water dripping off the upside-down table outside the restaurant. Safe things to see. Safe things to think about.

"That's good," Dad said, and Rusty turned sharply to look at him. Dad was crouching down in front of him, smiling at him approvingly. Rusty blinked frantically, trying to get rid of the impossible sight, and eventually Dad faded away and was replaced with a tall, concerned-looking stranger. In a cop's uniform. Oh. Fuck.

"Well done, son," the cop said, apparently recognising that Rusty was closer to reality. "My name's Officer Calhoun. Can you tell me yours?"

"Buzz Fairley," he answered immediately.

He watched as carefully as he was able but the cop accepted the lie. Good. "Okay, Buzz. Nice to meet you," the cop said with a reassuring smile. Looked like the sort of smile that got used to comfort frightened children. "You keep taking deep breaths, okay? You're doing fine." He handed Rusty a handkerchief. "Want to dry your eyes?"

He wanted to point out that he hadn't been crying, that he mostly never cried, but with a stab of shock and mortification he realised that his face was soaked with tears. That he'd been lying in the street sobbing.

A sudden thought and he looked round. There was a small crowd of people gathered round. He could see their faces, see them staring at him. A mixture of concern and pity and disapproval and derision. Unfamiliar shame burned through his cheeks and meekly he took the proffered handkerchief and scrubbed at his face.

"Nasty bruise you got there," the cop commented casually, as he rubbed at his cheek.

He traced it slowly with his hand. It was nothing. Small and barely purpling. The one punch Toby had got in hadn't exactly been impressive. He shrugged dismissively and silently handed the handkerchief back.

"Thank you son," the cop said with the same, patient gentleness. As if he thought Rusty would spook and run at any moment. "You on the streets?"

He shook his head, quickly and truthfully.

The cop's eyes flickered over Rusty's clothes and he nodded and didn't look surprised. "Okay. Can you tell me where you live?"

He froze; his mind full of Dad's reaction if he brought police to the door. Worse than when they got arrested and he had to ruthlessly suppress the tremble at the memory. Dad had said then that if the cops ever showed up for Rusty again, he'd _ really _hurt him. As if he'd been holding back for Rusty's whole life. He couldn't take the cop to Dad.

"Easy there, son," the cop said sharply. "Didn't I promise that no one was going to hurt you? I just want to talk to your folks, that's all. Now, where do you live?"

...not with Dad. He didn't live with Dad. There was Danny. Oh, he sure as _hell_ wasn't taking a cop to see Danny.

He needed to get away from this nightmare as quickly as possible.

"I live with my mom and her boyfriend," he said quietly, hanging his head and shuffling his feet, to disguise the tension, the preparation.

The cop nodded encouragingly and his pen was poised over his notebook. "Can you tell me the street address?"

"Apartment 2016," he began and then he was up and running before the cop even realised that he wasn't going to finish that sentence.

The cop swore loudly. "Stop him!" he yelled, and people were grabbing at Rusty, chasing him, but he managed to duck and dodge and keep moving and they didn't have a hope of catching him.

The apartment was empty when he got back. Danny was out. Looking for him, his mind pointed out, and he remembered misdirected anger, and he remembered causing fear and misery and pain, and Danny hadn't understood any of it, and Danny was out looking because he was afraid for Rusty.

Stumbling into the kitchen, he found the whisky, found a glass, poured himself a stiff measure.

He'd seen Dad. He'd seen Dad and he'd been reduced to an incoherent quivering, pathetic lump. He'd seen Dad, and Dad hadn't been there.

He drained his glass in a single gulp and dropped the glass back onto the counter with shaking hands. The whisky burned his throat. He wondered. He wondered if this was how Mom had got started. Seeing her nightmares walking around in daylight and drowning them with alcohol. Drinking at 11 in the morning, because the world was alien and terrifying and she - he - couldn't tear reality and terror apart anymore.

He had to face up to it. He wasn't okay.


	7. Chapter 7

**Another chapter of this. Think there'll be...three more chapters. Or maybe four. Or, really, who knows. **

**And thanks, again, and as always to InSilva. Who has preread this and is generally wonderful.  
**

* * *

With a deep breath, he shoved the bottle away and dumped the glass in the sink. Enough. He had to get out of the apartment before Danny came back. Had to make sure that he didn't see Danny before he'd got everything straightened out in his head. If he saw Danny now, he'd need to tell Danny everything. Desperation made him long to tell Danny everything, everything he was thinking, everything he was afraid of. And he didn't...no. That wasn't true. He _did _know. He knew that was the wrong thing to do. The selfish thing to do. The moment he told Danny, Danny was going to stop thinking about what was the right thing for _them_. It was going to be all about Rusty, and he couldn't let that happen.

No. He had to get out of here. But he hesitated, because Danny was _looking _for him. Danny was frightened for him without even knowing why. Not something he could really let slide. He quickly scribbled a note. "_Gone out. I'll be back later. I'm fine." _He stared at it for a moment, wondering if Danny would be able to tell that he was lying even in ink and paper. He closed his eyes briefly then added two more words. "_I'm sorry." _

When he walked out of the door he wondered if it would be for the last time.

* * *

It was a different bar than the last one and this time the bartender didn't even bother asking for his ID. Maybe he looked older. He sat at the bar and drank whisky and ignored the morose lunchtime crowd.

There was a good chance that he was losing his mind. There was a good chance that he was losing sight of the real world. There was a good chance that he was losing every possibility of him ever living a real life. There was a good chance that he was losing everything that made him _him. _

It was simple. Really, it was. If your dad had blond hair there was a good chance that so would you. If your mom had blue eyes, you might too. If your mom spent her life listening to voices that only she could hear, living in a world that no one else could see, self-medicating with anything that drowned out the fear, lashing out at anything that irritated her.... He gripped the edge of the bar tightly for a moment and signalled the bartender for another drink. If your mom was all that, there was a good chance that you could be too. That _he_ would be too. _("We're all you'll ever be.")_

He drank the whisky a little too quickly and his throat was burning. Almost as much as his eyes. Fear was everything.

Okay. He could get through this. He could think this through to its logical conclusion. If he was losing his mind, if he wasn't going to be able to look after himself, if he was _never _going to be able to look after himself, then Danny would take care of him. For the rest of their life, however long that was. Danny would give up everything that he'd ever wanted. And Rusty couldn't let that happen. Couldn't let Danny waste his life like that. Couldn't leave Danny alone and miserable and overwhelmed by watching Rusty lost and diminished and _gone_ for the rest of his life. It couldn't happen. It wasn't going to happen.

And, he thought, guilt flowing through him, he'd already put Danny in danger. From Dad. Dad who could find him and would hurt them. Would hurt Danny. And there was no part of him now that didn't believe utterly that was going to happen. No part of him that seriously thought that he wasn't going to end up beneath Dad's fists again, wasn't going to end up bleeding and battered and beaten down. That was his life. All he knew. And it was never going to be Danny's.

No, he had to leave. That was the best thing for everyone. For him to disappear. Vanish from Danny's life, like he'd never been. He winced; the very thought was agony. And it wasn't like he didn't know what it would do to Danny. Wasn't like he didn't know that it would _hurt_ almost more than anything else. Wasn't like he didn't know that Danny would be devastated. And he really didn't want to cause that kind of pain. But the alternative was so much worse. Danny, stuck because of him. And that wasn't even the worst of it, of course. Because, sometimes, _sometimes_, when Mom had hurt him, sometimes it hadn't been him she'd been trying to attack. Sometimes she hadn't even seen him. Sometimes she'd had no idea who he was and he'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and he'd always been too young to stop her. Too little to run. Too small to fight her off. And there was the thing. Because if he got to that stage, if he...if he stopped _recognising _Danny – and his soul screamed at the _idea – _if he attacked Danny, tried to hurt Danny, if, maybe, he mistook Danny for Dad like he had that cop earlier (_nonononononoNO!) _then...oh, Danny wouldn't fight him. Danny wouldn't fight him because Danny couldn't bear the thought of hurting him, and Danny wouldn't run because he'd be afraid that Rusty might hurt himself, and _Danny would let Rusty hurt him_.

He imagined what it would feel like to come out of one of his little moments of confusion and see Danny there. See Danny bleeding. See Danny standing there bleeding, because he'd...because he'd...

The whiskey glass broke in his hand.

The bartender gave him a dirty look. "Sorry," he muttered and pushed a couple of bills along the bar. More than the glass was worth, and the bartender scowled and gave him another glass and poured more drink.

His hand stung a little. There was blood on it. He wiped it off on his shirt.

He didn't know where he'd go. Home...dad's place...was the most obvious in many ways. Familiar. And he already knew that no one there cared what happened to him. No one would take him away and lock him up. And the only trouble with that was that Dad was there, and going back would mean voluntarily going back to being hit and hurt. And he wasn't quite ready to do that yet. Besides, he could easily see the look on Danny's face if – when – he found out. Could see the despair and the fury. And if Dad had hurt him...it wouldn't be a fight, it would be murder. And whichever way it ended, they would lose. And he had no doubt that Danny would find him.

That was the thing though; Danny _would _find him. Always. He might be able to run, but ultimately he couldn't hide. Danny would find him and he'd have hurt Danny for _nothing._ Where could he possibly go that Danny wouldn't think of looking? A monastery? He smiled darkly at the thought. That might work, for a while. If he could find one that was willing to overlook...well, a lot of things...and would take him. But in the end, Danny would find him. Danny would never stop looking. Not for a second.

Danny would never stop looking. And that meant that he had to make sure that Danny wasn't looking in the first place. He had to make sure that Danny didn't _want_ to find him. He had to drive Danny away, had to make Danny hate him.

He was shaking. Wide-eyed and horrified and frightened. He couldn't. Surely, surely, he couldn't. He into bit his lip hard. He _had _to. He had to be cruel to be kind. Had to hurt Danny now to save him from a lifetime of misery later.

Okay. He took a deep breath. If he was going to hurt Danny, if he was going to make Danny believe that he'd changed, that he wasn't the person Danny knew, he needed to be absolutely calm. Absolutely in control.

He swallowed hard. He knew how to do that. He wanted to do that.

Deliberately, he stood up and walked along the bar, before bumping hard against the two men sitting at the end of the bar.

"Watch it," the larger one snarled.

He grinned. "Or _what?" _he demanded mockingly. "What are you going to do?"

The smaller guy sipped at his beer and sighed. "Leave it, Ray."

"That's right, Ray," Rusty agreed instantly. "Listen to your mama. Leave well enough alone. You don't want to get hurt now, do you?"

Ray lurched to his feet and towered over Rusty. "Want to say that again?" he growled.

The smaller guy shook his head slowly. "Kid, you're pretty stupid. You should know that."

The adrenaline was coursing through him and really, he could hardly hear them. "Oh, are you wanting to fight?" he asked gleefully.

"Sit down, Ray," the smaller guy ordered.

"But, Chuck," Ray whined.

"Sit down!" Chuck insisted.

"Come on, Ray-Ray," Rusty goaded. "Be a good boy."

Ray punched fast and hard and Rusty lurched back, stars exploding in his head, blood trickling from his mouth. "That...that all you've got?" he asked

"Sit the fuck down, Ray," Chuck barked. "Look at him, will you? He's a _child_."

"I'm not," Rusty snapped, his voice loud and trembling in the silent bar. "Think I haven't faced worse than you? That was nothing. Come on. Hit me again, you bastard. I dare you. Hit me. Hit me."

His voice had been pleading and there was a look in Chuck's eyes..._pity_ and he _hated _it. "Go home, kid," he said gently.

"No!" he shouted instantly. "You want to fight, let's fight. Come on, hit me! Hit - " Someone suddenly grabbed him from behind and he immediately started struggling, started fighting, and after a second he recognised the bartender and he was lifted bodily, his feet not even touching the ground, and the next thing he was being thrown outside.

"And don't come back," the bartender yelled as the door slammed shut.

The humiliation burned deep inside, but it wasn't fear and it wasn't anger. He closed his eyes for a long moment and willed himself to walk home.

* * *

When he walked into the apartment, the door slamming shut behind him, Danny was standing in the kitchen, Rusty's note clenched tightly in his hand. Guilt rose up deep inside him at the sight of the relief on Danny's face.

"Rusty," Danny sighed and then he seemed to catch sight of the split lip and an expression of anger and pain slid over his face and he stepped in close in an instant, his hand reaching up.

Rusty willed himself to flinch. Willed himself to force the instinctive reaction that would hurt Danny so much. He _couldn't_.

But Danny must have seen something wrong, because he stepped back and when he spoke his voice was deliberately light. "So, you just getting beaten up for fun now?"

And that reaction he wasn't quite fast enough to cover. Danny's words were a little too close to the truth and the agreement must have shown in his face.

The lightness had frozen. Danny was staring at him. "_What?"_

"It's not your business, Danny," he said harshly, and he turned away quickly, not able to look at Danny anymore, too cowardly to see the pain he was inflicting.

Didn't stop him hearing it. "It's not . . . it's not my _business_?" Danny demanded, his voice disbelieving.

He closed his eyes. "Right," he agreed mockingly. "Guess you're catching on at last."

"_It's not my business,"_ Danny repeated and the anger was creeping in now, and that was what he had to build on. "You tell me . . . and it's not my business? Your life isn't my business now? You're not my concern now?"

"Yes!" he almost shouted, wild and sincere. "I don't need you. I don't want you in my life anymore."

He could feel the heat of Danny's stare. "_Rusty," _Danny whispered, anger gone, anguish taking over. "Rusty, what's going on? What happened?"

"Nothing fucking _happened_," he snapped. "I just grew up, that's all. Grew up enough to want to be an individual instead of part of a matched set. I just want some fucking independence. Don't want you hanging round my neck all the time. Is that so much to ask?"

There was a long moment of silence. He was shaking. "Look at me," Danny said at last.

He took a second. Needed a second to keep his resolve, to be certain that he wasn't going to crack. Then he turned and looked straight at Danny and he kept himself together, even as he saw Danny lost and helpless and nearly-destroyed. Anger and hatred weren't such a hard reach and he could feel his face – his soul – twist with them. As long as Danny couldn't see that it was all directed inwards, he should be fine.

"Rusty," Danny said again, and he hardened his heart against the plea.

"Forget it, Danny," he snarled and he watched the beginnings of defeat wind their way through and he couldn't bear it any longer. "I'm going to bed," he decided hurriedly.

Danny shook his head, fear in his eyes. "Rus', no, we need to - "

" - I'm through talking," he claimed insistently, and he almost ran into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. By the time the hesitant knocking came (_and _that _nearly killed him by itself.) _he had pulled his desk in front of the door. Danny wasn't getting in and the tears were free to fall.

In the end, he took a couple of sleeping pills. The alternative was screaming until his throat bled.

* * *

**Yeah. Sorry.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Not updated this for a while. Still find it painful. In other non-new-news, InSilva is impressive.**

_

* * *

He was in the kitchen, not his and Danny's kitchen, his old kitchen, the kitchen in Dad's place, but he and Danny were living there now, of course, had been for years. Danny was standing (_cowering_) pressed back against the kitchen counter, his eyes wide and frightened, staring at Rusty, and Rusty was holding a kitchen knife – _the _kitchen knife, the one that he'd had nightmares about for years – and he was pointing it at Danny. He wanted to scream, tried desperately to put the knife down, to throw it away, to tell Danny that it _wasn't him, _but he wasn't in control and all he could do was watch helplessly as he stepped closer and closer to Danny, the point of the knife getting nearer and nearer to Danny's face._

_(Danny said his name. Anxiously. Fearfully. Rusty couldn't respond.)_

_Danny didn't try to run, didn't try to stop him, fight him, in any way, and there was fear and agony and wrongness in Danny's eyes, but there was no surprise, no hint that Danny expected anything different from him. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened. He hurt Danny and Danny let him._

_(Danny said his name again. Louder. More frightened. More frantic.)_

"_Who are you?" he demanded. "I don't know you. I really don't think you should be here. Not looking at me. Don't look at me. _Who are you?" _Mom's words. His voice. Danny stood still and trembled and listened. "Filthy. Disgusting. I don't like your eyes. They're evil. Looking at me." He couldn't stop himself. He laid the flat of the knife against Danny's face, the point resting a hairsbreadth from Danny's eye. _

_(Danny said his name and shook him hard and there was terror in the shout.)_

"_Looking at me with those disgusting, dirty eyes," he muttered, and this was the point where Danny should be running, this was the point where Danny should be jerking his head away and running as fast as he could and not coming back till he was sure it was safe – like _he _had – but Danny _wasn't. _Danny was just standing there and Rusty couldn't even scream as the blade moved sideways, as he dug the kitchen knife into Danny's eye and watched the blood run out and -_

"Rusty!" A sudden, sharp, unexpected pain and he found himself lying in bed, blinking astonishedly up at Danny. Danny's left hand was gripping the front of Rusty's shirt, his right hand was raised. There was terror in his eyes. Rusty's cheek was burning and he pressed his hand against it.

He stared up at Danny and he could still feel the sensation as he slid the knife into Danny's eye. "I'm sorry," he said softly and his voice cracked a little, and Danny let go of him and stepped back as if _he _was the one who'd been slapped.

He tried to think but his body felt heavy and his mind was clouded. It had been a dream. It had been a dream and he hadn't really hurt Danny. (_That way. Yet.) _

"You wouldn't wake up," Danny said quietly. "I just wanted to give you a few moments to calm down before...and then you didn't answer when I knocked and the door was blocked and you didn't wake up when I forced it, and you were having a nightmare, and you _wouldn't wake up._" His voice was sharp with terror. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Without needing to think about it, he reached out and grabbed Danny's hand and squeezed it tightly. Danny collapsed on to the bed, sitting beside him.

He stared stupidly, for a long moment, struggling to understand. Danny was sorry for hitting him. Of course. But when Rusty had woken up, he'd apologised. So that must mean...He studied Danny carefully. The guilt that was screaming through him. Danny didn't know that Rusty had blinded him. Danny had no way of knowing that. So, from Danny's point of view, he'd hurt Rusty and Rusty had apologised for it. And in Danny's mind that placed him firmly in the position of Rusty's dad.

"Oh, Danny," he said at last, helplessly, and his voice was hoarse and his throat was dry. He could see the guilt consuming Danny and this was separation and distance but it wasn't what he'd wanted. There needed to be no question in either of their minds that he was the bad one. "It wasn't that." He looked at Danny until he was sure that Danny understood. "I wasn't apologising like that. Just something in my dream."

"What?" Danny asked gently.

Rusty was never going to tell him that. He let go of Danny's hand and leaned further away. "You wanted something?" he asked, and his voice was cold and far away.

"We need to talk," Danny told him.

"Nothing to talk about," Rusty said, and his eyes were closing again and he couldn't have any kind of conversation right now anyway.

"You're falling asleep again?" Danny's voice was incredulous.

"Took some pills," Rusty explained foggily.

Suddenly Danny's hand was round his wrist, almost painfully. "How many?" he demanded.

Confused, Rusty blinked his eyes open. Danny's face was even paler than it had been before. "Just a couple."

"Only two? You sure?" Danny asked intent, not letting go of his wrist.

"Yeah..." Rusty said vacantly and he wanted to go to sleep.

Danny didn't seem to want to let him, judging by the fingers still digging into his wrist. "What are they?"

"Sleeping pills," he said with a touch of irritation. "In the top drawer," he added, hoping that would be enough to get Danny to leave him alone.

His wrist was released abruptly and after a second he heard the drawer open and shut and the rattle of the pill bottles. "How long?" Danny asked quietly and Rusty turned round at the pain in his voice.

"Few weeks," he explained uncertainly. "It's the best way, Danny. They keep me from waking up."

Danny's voice was full of inexplicable anger. "You stupid _bastard." _ He sighed, calmed himself down and Rusty reminded himself that the point here was to create distance, the plan was to get Danny mad at him. Even if he didn't understand why. "When did you take them?" Danny asked tightly.

Very slowly, his mind stuffed comprehensively with cotton wool, he turned his head and looked at the clock. Ten past two. And still afternoon, still daylight. "Fifteen minutes ago?" he guessed.

Danny sighed again. "Okay. We'll talk when you wake up."

Not if he could help it.

"Yes. We will," Danny told him sharply and Rusty turned away.

There was a pause and Danny started to lie down beside him, and Rusty forced himself to suppress all the parts of him that wanted to let him. All of him that wanted to settle back into comfort and closeness and Danny. Instead he moved his shoulder abruptly, denying Danny space. "No, Danny," he said firmly.

Another pause, a longer pause, and Danny stood up, and Rusty could feel Danny looking at him. "Don't you think we're a little old for that?" he asked, forcing scorn into his voice.

Danny didn't say anything and Rusty buried his face in the pillow and welcomed sleep.

* * *

Nightmares almost woke him a few times, shaking and biting his lip to keep from crying. Each time Danny was there, soft words, murmured reassurance, gentle hands on his shoulders, keeping him safe. Each time he swore that _next_ time he wouldn't let Danny see the gratitude and love before he pulled away and mumbled something rude and unforgivable. Each time he failed.

* * *

It was dark when he woke. He was lying facing the wall, curled in on himself as tight as possible, his hands twisted into the blankets, his arms pulled up over his face, protecting himself. Keeping as still as possible, he concentrated on listening, desperately trying to figure out if he was alone, trying to figure out if he was _safe._ The sound of another person breathing and he tensed automatically, preparing to run, preparing to hurt. Then he heard a sharp gasp and a soft whimper of pain. _Danny._

In an instant he uncurled and he rolled over. Danny was sitting on the chair at his desk, as if he'd been watching Rusty sleep, but now his head was thrown back and his eyes were closed and his face was twisted with the pain of whatever he was seeing and he whimpered again, soft and pained and helpless. Rusty was on his feet immediately, standing over Danny, gently gripping his shoulder. "Danny. Danny, wake up. It's okay," he pleaded, hating the sight of Danny hurting.

Danny's eyes snapped open and he grabbed Rusty's wrist tightly, looking him up and down, searching for new injury.

"You were dreaming, Danny," Rusty reassured him softly, like he had a hundred times before. "I'm safe," he whispered, _"We're _safe," and he rubbed Danny's shoulder, doing his best to be comforting, doing his best to be what Danny needed.

After a moment Danny looked up at him and smiled. "You know, your whole _I-don't-want-you-in-my-life-anymore _plan is a little difficult to believe right now."

The plan. He froze abruptly and he carefully pulled his hand back, consciously glared at Danny and flung himself on the edge of the bed as angrily as he could manage.

Looking like he was regretting opening his mouth, Danny sat up and stretched painfully. He must have been sat there for hours. Watching Rusty sleep. Watching Rusty suffer and have nightmares and not being allowed to hold and comfort. With an effort, Rusty thought he managed to hold the scowl, to not give in to the guilt and self-recrimination. This was the best plan. This was the only plan. He had to see it through.

"You been here all evening?" he asked, knowing the answer. "You not got anything better to do?" He made his voice scornful.

Danny closed his eyes briefly. "No," he said simply. "I don't. How are you feeling, Rusty?"

"Fine," he answered shortly. Physically speaking, it was fairly close to true. He must've been asleep for a few hours now, and even though the pills left him feeling heavy and lethargic and dizzy, he still felt more rested than he had in days. Actually, he felt more rested than Danny looked and he tried to bury his concern. He wasn't supposed to care.

"It's not going to work, Rus'," Danny told him quietly. "It's _never _going to work."

It _had _to, he thought desperately, and he could see Danny reading it on his face.

"_Why?" _Danny demanded. "Why are you doing this? Why won't you tell me what's going on? Why won't you let me help? I can help, Rus'. Or at least I can try."

Oh, Danny would try. Danny would always try, and that was one of the things that Rusty loved about him. One of the many, many things. With an effort, he buried all of that as deep as he could. He mustn't let Danny try. His face twisted with contempt. For _Danny. "_You think you can fix everything, don't you? You even like it. You like people coming to you for help, relying on you. Bet you liked that I was always so needy. That I relied on you. That I needed you to fix me up all the time. That I came to you every time Dad got through with me. Well, guess what, Danny? There's nothing wrong with me now. I don't need you." He was shaking and he felt sick and Danny was pale and staring.

"_You think I liked it_?" Danny whispered.

He shrugged angrily and forced himself to carry on talking. Force himself to carry on hurting. "Grow up, Danny. You really think we'd have stayed friends if you didn't feel responsible? If you didn't...." He swallowed back tears and nearly choked on the painful lies. "If you didn't get a kick out of being...out of being the only one who gave a damn. If it didn't make you...make you feel like a big man?"

"_Rusty," _Danny said, and there was hoarse agony in his voice. "I...you're lying. _Why? _I don't...since when am I the enemy?"

He wasn't. Danny wasn't the enemy. _Rusty _was the enemy. Rusty was the one destroying everything they were, threatening everything Danny could be. And he couldn't explain that or everything was lost. He shrugged instead. "Life's not fair, deal with it." He stared at the floor for a long moment. "Always told you that nothing lasts forever. Maybe now you believe me."

"_No," _Danny pleaded, and he crossed the room in an instant, his hand outstretched, desperately seeking comfort, desperately seeking to _offer _comfort, and Rusty dodged it easily and he thought that maybe he'd see the look on Danny's face every time he closed his eyes for the rest of his life.

He stood up. "I'm going out for some air," he announced and he strode out of the room, Danny a step behind him. "Alone," he clarified with a glare. He wanted to get out of here. Wanted to get away from Danny for a while, wanted to get away from hiding and hurting.

"No," Danny insisted, and he stood in front of Rusty firmly.

Rusty stared at him, keeping his face blank. "What are you going to do, _Danny? _Lock me up? Keep me trapped here for the rest of my life?" He knew what he was saying. He knew damned well what he was saying and it was vicious and it was inexcusable.

Danny swayed slightly at the words, at the echo, at the accusation, but he didn't move. "You want to go out, that's fine. But not alone, Rus'. Please. I can't let you. You have to see that - "

" - _Let _me?" he interrupted harshly. "Let me? You're not in charge of me, Danny. I want to go out, how are you going to stop me, huh?" His eyes were fixed on Danny's face and nothing he was saying was enough. It was hurting Danny, fuck was it hurting Danny, but it wasn't _enough. _There was no hatred in Danny's eyes. Just pain. Just so much pain. He needed something more. He needed something unforgivable.

With a deep breath, he leaned in close and whispered. "_You going to hit me again, Danny_?"

For a moment he was sure that Danny would cry. For a moment he was sure that he'd twisted the knife so hard and so deep that Danny was going to break down in front of him. Instead, he watched as Danny closed his eyes and vanished momentarily behind steel walls of self-protection. And he'd seen that before, of course, seen that often. But now Danny was hiding from him. Now, Danny needed to protect himself from Rusty.

When Danny opened his eyes, second later, there was no pain visible, no anger. Just compassion. Just love. It hurt Rusty just as much as the hatred would have done. "We'll work this out, Rus'," Danny said softly. "I _promise."_

He forced down the always-echo of love and trust, dismissed the hope as quickly as it blossomed. "You're _pathetic,_ Danny," he sneered. "Guess I'm going to take a shower. Since I'm a prisoner here."

He turned his back on Danny hopefully before Danny could see anymore, and he made it into the bathroom before Danny could say anything. His hands gripped the sink tightly and for a moment he was filled with the stupid desire to punch the walls as hard as he could, to hit out until either the world broke or he did.

Instead, he reached over and turned the shower on. Sound of the water should be enough to reassure Danny, at least for a little while. In the meantime....he stared at the window. Opened it quietly. Stared at the sturdy drainpipe running down beside it.

Neither of them had actually said it out loud, but one of the major selling points of this apartment had been the fact that there was a window in every room and all of them were a potential escape route. On some level that neither of them had liked to think about, they'd needed a place they could escape from. Even though they were never supposed to need it again.

Of course, they'd never dreamed it would be Rusty running away from Danny.

He took a deep breath, hardly believing what he was thinking of doing, telling himself it was just for a while, he'd just go out for a while and come back like nothing had happened, and the more he acted like a thoughtless, stupid, ungrateful teenager the more likely it was that Danny would not want to know him anymore. Would not recognise him anymore. In the long run, he was doing what was best for Danny. Just because Danny would never see it that way didn't change that. Still he wasn't convinced and he clenched his fists tightly and remembered his dream from earlier. Was _that _what he wanted? To be a burden on Danny, to be a threat to Danny, to _torture_ Danny? To do to Danny everything that his parents had done to _him_? No. This was best. And he had to make the decision because Danny never would.

His hands were shaking as he climbed down the drainpipe and it wasn't until he reached the street below that he looked hastily round to check that no one had been watching. Fortunately, no one seemed to have seen anything unusual.

Right. A couple of hours. A couple of hours of Danny in an agony of worry and panic, and then he'd come home and act like he didn't care, and surely that would be enough to convince Danny. Surely that would be enough to plant a rift between them. Surely.

God, he hated himself so much.

He glanced down the street. Liquor store. That could help. If he smelled of alcohol, if he'd been drinking...not like Danny couldn't draw a line. Yeah. That was where to start.

There was a bunch of kids in the store already when he walked in, huddled round the corner, being glared at by the clerk. They all looked a little older than him. Probably not quite Danny's age.

"Look, I told you," the clerk was saying, loud and exasperated. "No ID, no booze. Understand?"

He listened to the outburst of swearing, watched the kids walk away and went up to the counter himself. "Bottle of McCarthy's."

The clerk rolled his eyes. "Didn't I just get through telling you - "

" - not me," he interrupted and he slid his ID across the counter.

The clerk picked it up and frowned. "Huh. Okay."

He paid for his whiskey, aware of the kids in the doorway, staring at him and whispering. Fuck, he hoped they weren't wanting to fight. He wasn't in the mood anymore. Too damned tired.

They followed him outside. "Hey! You!" one of them hissed. "You can buy booze?"

"Right," he agreed simply.

"Would you buy some for us if we gave you the cash?" another boy asked.

"We're going to a party and we're supposed to bring something," a girl added.

He shrugged, uncaring. "Sure. Why not."

A pretty, dark-haired girl was frowning at him. "Hey, you're not wearing shoes," she exclaimed.

Oh. He looked down. He wasn't, of course. Hadn't even thought of putting them down before he left. He shrugged again. "Rough week."

The girl smiled sympathetically at him. "You wanna come to the party with us?" she suggested. "It's gonna be great. Titch is driving us. And Warren's going to be there. He's got the best stuff."

He hesitated. But it would only be for a while, and it would mean that he wouldn't be wandering the streets on his own, and it would probably help with the whole smelling of booze and smoke idea, would probably help convince Danny that he'd been out enjoying himself while Danny had been being in pain. What could it possibly hurt?

"Sure," he nodded. "Why not?"

* * *

**More hopefully sooner than later.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Things are updated! Woo! Hope you remember it. Hope you enjoy it.**

* * *

It wasn't fun anymore.

He staggered up the stairs, his feet dragging over each and every step, his hands pressed into the wall, and it felt too slick and too smooth and too warm, like his hand might melt through at any moment. His head hurt and his mouth was dry and his throat was scratchy. His heart was racing and he could hear his breath coming fast and furious and frantic and frightened and he found himself kneeling on the stairs, his fists scrubbing hard against his eyes.

He scrambled to his feet and climbed up the last few steps and he was staring down the corridor. It was longer than it should've been, longer and darker, and there were shadows moving everywhere he couldn't see, and he could feel something watching him... For a moment he was sure he was going to be sick, and he was so hot and so cold, and determinedly he walked into the corridor, knees buckling with every step, and he could feel the floor moving, breathing beneath his feet, and he choked back his sobs and heard himself laughing helplessly, somewhere far away.

The front door loomed up above him, in front of him, and he stared at it blankly and laid his hand flat against the wood. It didn't open. Keys, he thought at last, and he reached into his jacket pocket. No pocket. No jacket. And they weren't in his jeans either. And these weren't _his _jeans.

He stared at the door some more and he just didn't know what to _do _and he chewed on his lip and he could hear his breathing getting fast and ragged again and his chest hurt, and there was a noise and the door swung wildly open and there was bright light that hurt his eyes, and then Danny was staring at him. He did nothing when Danny flung his arms around him, hugged him tightly and desperately.

"Rusty! Oh, Rus', thank God."

He sighed into Danny's chest. "Danny," he murmured contentedly, and he felt like he was home.

A moment later and Danny pulled him inside, and he giggled as the door slammed behind them and made him jump.

"You're drunk," Danny told him, his voice cracking slightly, and Rusty nodded solemnly, thinking of a game of poker for shots and forfeits and he didn't know whether he'd won or lost; a keg and girls who had giggled and kissed him and torn his shirt; a tall man pouring him wine and stroking his hair. He was certainly drunk. "Where have you _been?" _Danny demanded, one hand pressed against Rusty's cheek, like he was afraid Rusty might not be quite real. "I looked everywhere. _Rus'..." _

"I was at a a party," he explained. "And then at someone's house." He listened in fascination to his own voice. The words were slurred and slow and distant. "They were nice. They gave me a lift back." They'd given him much more than that, but he had a feeling he hadn't wanted to tell Danny about that for some reason.

Danny was staring. "Are...are you _high _right now?" he asked incredulously.

Rusty considered for a long moment and he thought of the car journey back into the city, kneeling between the woman's legs as she fixed her skirt and the man in the front seat passed the joint back to him, and he thought further back to the swimming pool and a handful of pills and shivering as eager hands trailed an ice cube over his chest, and further back still there'd been a bathroom and white powder and crisp twenty dollar bills, and the woman had been nuzzling at his throat, her hands holding his wrists, while larger, stronger hands stroked his shoulders, and there'd been more powder, and his head had been on fire, and everything had felt, been, too much, too good, too bad.

"Yes," he decided at last. He shivered again, and the light was too dark, and he was sore and he was cold and he kept thinking that something, someone, Dad was sneaking up behind him. "It's not fun anymore," he admitted quietly. "I don't want it anymore."

He waited expectantly, knowing that Danny would help him, that Danny would make everything alright again, and Danny's face was miserable. "Rusty...." He sighed, and his hand was on Rusty's cheek and it felt cool and he leaned into it eagerly. "Oh, God, Rus'."

There was rich agony in Danny's voice, and Rusty wanted to concentrate on that, wanted to demand who had hurt Danny, but the world was spinning again and he frowned in alarm. "Feel sick," he muttered, and he lurched quickly towards the bathroom, and his feet were caught in the carpet, and he fell heavily.

Danny's arms were around him and he didn't think he was walking at all. He giggled a little in Danny's arms and then he was in the bathroom, kneeling in front of the toilet, and he thought he was never going to stop retching, and it _hurt, _and he felt like crying.

"It's okay, Rusty," Danny murmured, his hand rubbing gently between Rusty's shoulder blades. "You're home now. You're safe now. I'm here."

He sat up at last, leaning back against the sink, and holding onto the floor in case it all tumbled away from him.

It had before, in another bathroom, he remembered that. Remembered lying on the floor in a hazy, painful afterglow, trying to keep himself from drifting away while a rough mouth kissed at his fingers obsessively.

He blinked, and Danny was holding a glass to his lips and he drank the water eagerly. He was so _thirsty. _

"Easy," Danny said softly. "You'll choke."

He gazed up at Danny adoringly, content to give all the decisions away.

"We should get you cleaned up," Danny said hesitantly. "Your hair..you've got...We should get you cleaned up."

That sounded reasonable. Rusty felt sticky and dirty, and he could remember having champagne poured over him, remembered a red-haired woman licking it off, but he thought that clean sounded nice, and he struggled to get to his feet and pretty much fell into the shower, hitting the water on just before he landed in a heap on the floor.

"You've still got your clothes on," Danny protested, and Rusty couldn't see the problem here.

"M' clothes're dirty too," he slurred at Danny, and he laid his head down on the ground and closed his eyes for a moment. The water felt nice.

"Don't fall asleep," Danny told him sharply, and a moment later there was noise and movement, and when he opened his eyes, Danny was in the shower with him.

"You're getting wet," he said to Danny curiously. There was a look in Danny's eyes that he didn't understand. There were several looks in Danny's eyes that he didn't understand and, hesitantly, he reached a hand up to Danny's face. "You mad at me?" he asked.

"No," Danny lied immediately.

He felt his eyes prickle.

"Don't cry," Danny said wretchedly. "Please don't cry. Look, let's just get you cleaned up and put to bed and we can talk about this in the morning when...when you're feeling better, okay?"

He nodded and Danny helped him to his feet and started undressing him.

"Where did you get these clothes?" Danny muttered, and there was a decided edge to his voice.

He shrugged. Wasn't quite sure, if he was being honest. Vaguely, he remembered falling out of a king-size bed, grabbing the first things he saw on the floor, but it was all so blurry and he wasn't certain it had happened like that. He couldn't trust his head.

Carefully, Danny eased his jeans off, and Rusty squirmed and leaned away. It tickled a little. He wasn't usually ticklish.

"You're not wearing..." Danny's voice came from far away. "_Rus'!" _

There was absolute misery in Danny's voice again, and he looked up sharply and Danny was staring at his chest. He glanced down at himself. Saw the lovebites trailed across him, bright and red and livid. There'd been a competition and he'd been the prize and he wasn't sure who'd won.

Ashamed, suddenly, he tried to hide himself from Danny, his arms crossing awkwardly over his body.

"Don't," Danny said, soft and pained, and he leant in close and gently kissed Rusty on the mouth.

Rusty had been kissed a lot lately. Kissed by people who were beautiful and people who knew what they were doing. Danny was better. Danny loved him.

"Feels different when it's you," he said vaguely. He remembered something and blinked anxiously at Danny. "I'm sorry I have to make you hate me."

There was a noise, a choked, miserable sob, and Danny was looking fiercely at him. "That's _never _going to happen, Rus'. I'm sorry. That's not even possible."

"You _have _to," he insisted, and the water was streaming down his face. "I have to make sure you don't look for me."

"I'll always look for you. You're all I..." Danny swiped at his eyes impatiently with the back of his hand. "You're all I have, Rusty. There's no place you can go that I won't follow."

"It's not _fair," _he said, staring at Danny.

"You're gonna have to live with it," Danny said, and he kissed Rusty again, kissed his forehead.

"'s nice," he commented brightly, and as Danny reached for shampoo and brushed his hair back, he fell forwards and twined his arms round Danny's neck, getting as close to Danny as he possibly could. "You're still wearing clothes," he frowned, surprised. _He _was naked. Naked and wet and covered in bubbles. He giggled, amused by nothing in particular and dozed off against Danny's chest as Danny washed him.

In time, he was aware of Danny helping him out the shower, towelling him dry, talking to him but he couldn't really make out the words and all he wanted to do was close his eyes, curl up and sleep for as long as he could.

Eventually, conversation faded, and he felt Danny pick him up, an arm under his shoulders, under his knees, and he was being carried, and then, somehow, he was wearing boxers and a t-shirt, and there were cool sheets, blankets tucked round him, Danny lying next to him, close and warm and safe. He smiled, and snuggled up as near as he could. Just as he drifted off, he would swear that he heard Danny crying.

* * *

He slept uneasily, restless and burning and lost.

He dreamt, now and then, his mind flicking rapidly through memories, and they were worse than ever, larger and brighter and darker. He lived them and Danny was there and he clung on tightly and begged Danny to save him.

Cool hands against his face. A body tight against him. Arms around him.

He was protected.

* * *

Daylight hurt his eyes and he kept them closed and burrowed deeper into the blankets.

There was an arm splayed across his back, a hand gently stroking through his hair. He scrabbled for the right memory and he came up with an image of a man, possessive and insistent, and the man knew what he was doing and it had been fun but he'd had _enough. _

"Go away," he muttered, petulant and vicious. "I'm sick of you."

The hand stopped in his hair but it wasn't removed. The man was still there. Waiting. (_Frozen)_

"_Leave me alone," _he said, loud and waspish.

A second later and he felt the movement of the bed as the man stood up and then he heard the door open and close gently.

Alone, he screwed his eyes shut tighter and tried to go back to sleep.

* * *

Waking up had taken a while but he eventually managed to struggle back to the surface.

His head was pounding, he was aching in places he didn't know he had, and his mouth tasted of dry and death. God. _Everything _hurt. He'd been drunk before but he'd never had a hangover this bad. (_He wondered if this was how Dad felt every morning.)_

He opened his eyes slowly, wincing at the light. Fuck, it hurt. What the hell had he been drinking?

A welter of images flooded through his head. Arguing with Danny, running away. The party, full of over-excited teenagers, beer and weed. The woman inviting a few of them back to her place. After that, things went hazy and memory broke down into random pictures and feelings.

He screwed his eyes shut and grimaced at some of them. Fuck. So stupid...so _dangerous. _Complete fucking loss of control. Why had he done all that? Oh yeah. He'd wanted to forget. And he'd wanted to make Danny hate him. Nice going. He buried his face in the pillow and considered the merits of suffocating himself. Pillow....He was lying in a bed and his mind raced, trying to figure out where he was.

Opening his eyes again, he looked round. His bed. His room. Huh. And he was wearing a fresh t-shirt and boxers. That was something; he couldn't have been too badly off last night if he'd managed to get himself home and put himself to bed.

There was a noise from the living room and he flinched and stared anxiously towards the door. If Dad was out there....he wasn't in a fit state to run. He wouldn't even be able to dodge. He wouldn't have a _chance._

Another noise. _Danny_, he reminded himself. Danny, who had to hate him. Danny who, hopefully, please, had no idea that he'd made an idiot of himself last night.

He wondered if he could just stay in bed forever.

With an effort he dragged himself out of bed and stood swaying for a few moments. Felt like he might've died some time ago, and he hauled clothes out of his wardrobe at random and put them on.

He noticed the lovebites on his chest. The fingernail marks on his back and hips. He could just about remember how they got there and he felt a vague self-disgust.

Eyes half-closed, he staggered through to the living room, vaguely noticing Danny in the kitchen, his back turned to Rusty, and then it was just a little too much effort to stay on his feet and he fell onto a chair, his head landing heavily on the table. This was as far as he could possibly go.

A mug of coffee was placed quietly beside him and a gentle hand squeezed his shoulder. Danny. He smiled weakly into his arm, confident in the knowledge that Danny couldn't see. Seemed as though he must've had a shower last night but he could still smell whisky and sweat and smoke. Sex, drugs and probably even rock and roll, and none of it had helped. He was still him.

Something occurred to him and he raised his head slowly and squinted at Danny. "Shouldn't you be in class?" He shouldn't have said that. Supposed to be convincing Danny that everything was over.

Danny sipped at his own coffee and didn't look up from the paper he was staring at. "It's Saturday."

Oh. That was all right then. Surprising, but all right. He dropped his head back on to his arm and wondered whether taking a shower or going back to bed would make him feel closer to better. He doubted either would help. Ultimately, he doubted anything would help.

"You were gone for four days," Danny added, after a moment. "I didn't know where you were."

Okay. He could deal with that. Not like he didn't have practice. "I'll think of something to tell the school. Don't worry."

There was a second of silence. "Rus'," Danny whispered and he looked up sharply, because he hadn't heard that note in Danny's voice for a long time, not for ever, not for months.. "You were gone for four days. I didn't know where you _were."_ And Danny was shaking, was actually trembling, and Rusty looked him in the eyes and felt like crying.

He saw every moment of the hell he'd thrown Danny into as he'd tried to escape his own.

He was on his feet before he knew it, reaching out, and Danny was standing too, tears falling.

"I didn't know where you _were," _Danny said again desperately, and Rusty hugged him tightly.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I'm so sorry." He said it over and over again and he couldn't bear to hear the pain in Danny's voice. He had done this. This was his fault. He had done this and guilt consumed him. He wanted to run. Not from Danny, not exactly, but he could feel the rising waves of panic and doubt and confusion, and he wanted to get out.

He stayed, of course. Listened to the broken, frantic words that fell out of Danny. "You were gone...and I looked _everywhere..._the liquor store...the guy said you'd gone...I called everyone you know from school....checked everywhere I could think of...everywhere we know....I couldn't _tell _anyone, Rus'," There was a choked sob, unbearable, inescapable. "I couldn't report you missing cos if they found you they'd take you away....I thought you were gone. I thought I'd _lost _you."

There was a soft, choked sob, and Rusty was gripping Danny's arms tightly and he didn't know what to _do, _he didn't know what to say. His fault. And he could imagine – oh, he could imagine all too easily – Danny searching everywhere, losing hope with no one to turn to. All his fault. Part of him wanted to leave. Run and never come back, never hurt Danny again.

"And then last night..." Danny went on. "You came home and you were...God, Rus', where were you? Who were you with?"

"I don't know," he admitted quietly, shamefully. "I really don't know."I'm _sorry_," he added, and he held Danny impossibly closer and he was crying now too. "Danny - "

" - I was gonna go back," Danny admitted suddenly.

He took a step back. Regarded Danny with horror. "No!" It was awful. Unthinkable.

Danny's eyes were blank and he licked his lips and nodded. "Yes. I thought...I thought that you might've gone there. Back to...back to _him."_

Back to Dad's. Back home. Back to beatings and fear and familiarity.

"No," he said again, feebly, but he'd thought about it, and he knew that Danny read the truth in his face. He stepped back further still. "Danny, I didn't. Honestly."

"I was gonna go back and get you," Danny told him, and Danny would have. Danny would've risked everything. And Danny would've gone back there and anything could've happened, anything could've happened to Danny, and it would've been all Rusty's fault.

"I never meant to - " he began, quietly anguished.

" - Yes you did," Danny interrupted , anger rising in his voice. "Yes you did and don't you _dare_ pretend you didn't. This sound familiar at all?" Danny pitched his voice low. "'I'm sorry I have to make you hate me. I have to make sure you don't look for me.'"

It didn't sound familiar. Didn't mean he couldn't guess they were his words. He wanted to make Danny hate him. "I don't remember," he said softly, staring down at his feet.

"Yeah? I'm not surprised," Danny snapped. "Seems like you get truthful when you get high."

Seemed that plan was going better than he'd imagined.

"_I don't hate you," _Danny told him fiercely. "How could I hate you? It's just...why?"

He said nothing. He turned away and said nothing and sat down at the table and sipped at his coffee. Did something for the headache, he thought. Didn't know what.

"Rus'?" He didn't look round. "What are you trying to protect me from?"

He tried to laugh. "What makes you think I'm trying to protect you?"

There was silence and then, out of nowhere, there was the sound of angry shouting and running footsteps from outside and he jumped about a foot in the air, looking anxiously towards the window. Hadn't sounded like Dad. He didn't think. He didn't know.

Guiltily, he looked back at Danny, and Danny's face was pale. "Tell me your Dad's not here. Tell me he hasn't found us."

"He isn't," Rusty insisted immediately. "He hasn't." Yet. As far as he knew. (_Except he lived in Rusty's head._)

"Rusty..." Danny sounded doubtful. "If he's here...if he's hurting you...if we're in danger, I need to know."

Danny was in danger. And maybe Danny did need to know. Deserve to know.

"He isn't," he said again, and he met Danny's eyes and promised truth.

He had to tell Danny the truth. He really did. Because he was right out of options and he'd _tried _to protect, tried to keep Danny safe, but all he'd done was hurt. But the guilt was burning through him and this was all his fault and (_he'd come out of the other side safe and well while Danny suffered_) and he couldn't _think _and he needed to get on top of this (_he needed to pay for this)_ and all he wanted to do was run.

"I'll tell you," he said at last. "I swear, I'll tell you everything. There's just...there's just something I have to do first." He had to get out of here. He had to get out of here right now.

Danny followed his gaze to the door. "No," he said simply.

"I'll come back," he promised, and he meant it, he really did, but his head was pounding and the walls were so close and he deserved...."I'll come right back."

There was a long silence and Danny was watching him.

"Look," Danny said eventually with painful gentleness. "I need to call Jacques. Tell him not to look for us this weekend. Then we're going to talk. Alright?"

He nodded.

Danny turned away.

He didn't mean to, he really didn't.

He didn't mean to hurt Danny. Didn't mean to run out on Danny.

But Danny turned away and he was on his feet before he knew it, running before he knew it, and the front door was right there and he needed to get out of here.

He ran.

(_He'd been bad._)


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Short update. But an update nonetheless.**

* * *

Another night, another bar, another couple of shots of whiskey, another card game.

He didn't even know where he was, not really. He'd just ran. And before there had been excuses and rationales and cold, fragmented logic. Now there was just truth; he was running away from Danny.

Seemed like everything he touched turned to shit these days. All his plans had crumbled and Danny wanted answers he didn't know how to give. And he believed now, he wasn't going to be able to make Danny hate him, no matter what he did. But that had been his only choice and now he didn't know what to do_. _

Even now he felt like he was on the very edge of a precipice. Wound up like some hideous spring and he was certain that if someone so much as touched him he'd just shatter.

This wasn't him. Except it was. These days, it was.

He didn't know what to _do. _

It was only when he'd stumbled into the bar, ordering a drink and paying with money he'd lifted from a guy outside that he really understood what he was doing. What he _needed. _

The bar was loud and crowded and smoke-filled, and he watched the people and picked his targets.

Four guys playing poker in the corner. Getting dealt in was the easiest thing in the world. He flashed a handful of cash, made like he was soft and easy and then spent the next hour goading them.

Winning was easy. With cards, winning was _always _easy. Again and again they fell his way and he grinned like there could be no doubt.

"Thanks for the money, guys," he said, and he watched the gathering fury like the warning signs of a hurricane. "You got any more for me?"

"Shut up and deal, kid," the bald one sneered. He hadn't bothered with their names. Hadn't given his. Making friends wasn't what this was about.

"Here we go," he said, cards dancing smoothly and at least _this _hadn't deserted him yet, at least this was still in his power. "Jacks or better progressive, Jokers are wild, you can pick up a new card on an even bet and your flies are undone."

Three of them looked. He laughed out loud and watched their faces darken , their eyes narrow, their fists clench.

He threw himself into the pattern of the game, wild and reckless and rash, and with every impossibly falling card, every stupid, mocking comment, he was asking for the fight, begging them for the fight.

"Show your fucking cards, kid," the bald one growled at last and he was holding a straight flush and thought he was unbeatable. Rusty had made him think he was unbeatable.

He smiled and dropped them to the table one by one. Ace of Hearts, Ace of Diamonds, Ace of Clubs, Ace of Spades, Joker.

He could feel the anger crackling through the air and he'd brought them right to the very edge.

"Five Aces," he said, and the grin was as wide as it ever had been. "Bet you've never seen that before."

"You cheating little bastard." He wasn't even exactly sure which of them had spoken. The words were barely whispered but they were all standing up, slowly. The bald one, who was so much bigger than he'd seemed when he was sitting, drew back his fist.

Rusty knew what was about to happen.

This was what he wanted to happen.

This was what was supposed to happen.

It didn't.

Danny stepped out in front of him. Stood between him and the men who were going to hit him. And he wasn't even looking at Rusty.

Rusty hadn't even known he was there. He'd had no idea.

"Come on, guys," Danny said softly. "You don't want to do this." He pushed all the money that had been stacked up in front of Rusty across the table. "Just take your cash and forget about it, huh?"

"It's not your business," the bald one said dismissively. "Fuck off, already." The anger was still there and Rusty wanted to agree, wanted to tell Danny to stay out of it, that it wasn't his business, that he knew what he was asking for.

"Yeah, it is," Danny said, and he wasn't just speaking to them. "He's my brother. It's my business."

It shouldn't be...he could still have the fight. At this stage, probably all he had to do was open his mouth. But Danny was here now, mixed up right in the middle of it, and no matter how hard he thought, Rusty couldn't think of any words that would make Danny stay out of it. Danny was protecting him and it made him so fucking angry.

The one in the baseball cap grinned menacingly. "Well, your brother is a dirty little cheat."

Danny took a step towards the men, but his whole posture was relaxed, not challenging them. Rusty was the only person who'd catch the crackle of anger. "He's just a kid," Danny argued persuasively, and Rusty could hear the smile in his voice and Danny's charisma levels were as high as they'd ever been. Relaxed and charming and persuasive and he had their attention and they weren't punching. "Come on. We all did stupid things when we were kids, right? Fuck, he's not old enough to know what he's doing."

He wanted to scream that he wasn't a kid and that he'd known _exactly _what he was doing, but Danny shifted his weight, the subtlest tilt of his head, and Danny was begging him to stay out of it. To let Danny handle it.

Still, he considered it. Just for a moment.

"Yeah?" The bald one was still frowning but there was more hesitation now, less belligerence. The storm was dissipating. "Well, seems like someone should teach him right from wrong."

Danny shrugged. "Well, we all learn in the end, right? Look, you got your money back. How about I buy all of you a drink – a couple of drinks," He pulled a couple of crisp notes out of nowhere and their eyes were fixed on them greedily. "And we forget the whole thing?"

The money was practically snatched out of Danny's hand. "Just don't let us catch you round here again," the bald one snarled at Rusty. "Next time big brother might not be here to save you."

Yeah. He fucking hoped not.

Danny's arm settled urgently round his shoulders and he let Danny drag him out of the bar and into the narrow alley.

The moment they were outside, he shook Danny away irritably. "You followed me," he said accusingly.

"Yeah." Danny didn't look in the least bit sorry. "You actually telling me you're surprised? You actually telling me that you thought I'd just let you walk out again?"

"I can take care of myself!" he argued. "I don't need you _following _me around, _rescuing _me, or whatever."

"Right. Because you sure looked like you were taking care of yourself," Danny said, and Danny was angry and frustrated and miserable, but so was Rusty.

"So, what, your plan was just to let me run off, follow me and, what, save me from myself?" He could hear the scorn in his voice. The irritation, the anger.

"_I didn't know where you were going," _Danny yelled. "I didn't know where you were going, Rus'. But you seemed so desperate. I thought...I was frightened that - "

" – what?" he demanded.

"I thought maybe you were going to meet your Dad," Danny said, looking away. "I thought..." He took a deep breath. "If he was here, if he'd found us and wanted money, or whatever...you wouldn't tell me."

No. He wouldn't. And they both knew why.

"Well, he's not here," he spat. And there was something else. "What else?"

Danny licked his lips. "I thought you might be meeting a dealer."

"You think I'm on drugs?" he demanded.

"You were yesterday," Danny said, meeting his eyes evenly. "Do you have any idea what it's like...You were gone for four days and you come back out of your head and you take those sleeping pills, and you've been acting – "

" – so it has to be drugs, right?" he asked scornfully. "That's the easy answer as seen in all the _best _PSAs."

Danny persisted. "So the last four days – "

" – first time," he insisted. First time, last time. Hadn't made him feel better. And if he wasn't so furious with Danny, he'd have told him that. "Since when are you such a fucking boyscout?"

"Since you come home looking like the piñata at an orgy!"

He wanted to turn away from the raw agony in Danny's voice. But he couldn't. "It was all...I didn't do anything I didn't want to do."

"And today?" Danny demanded. "Was that all what you wanted to do? Rusty, those guys were going to beat the shit out of you. You didn't have a chance – "

He glared. " – I'm not – " he began.

Danny didn't let him finish. " – you're fifteen! And there were four of them. You were going to lose and you provoked them. You picked that fight, I saw you. Five Aces? What the fuck is that?"

"I knew what I was doing!" he answered angrily. "I had it covered."

"They were going to hit you," Danny pointed out incredulously.

He shrugged dismissively. "Yeah, well, it's not like that's anything new."

There was a long silence. "What's going on?" Danny demanded finally.

He was tired of this. Fuck, he was tired of this. Tired of that fucking question, tired of the whole deal. "Why does anything have to be going on? Why can't you just leave me alone, Danny. Maybe I'd be fine if you just left me alone. So I got drunk. High, whatever. And yeah, I started that fight, and the last one too, but it's no big deal." He glared at Danny. Listened to the whisper of fury coursing through his veins. "I know what I'm doing. And if I want to get into trouble, if I want to start fights, maybe you should just leave me to it. Those guys were stupid, you know that? They deserve to have their money taken away. And I could handle them! Just stay out of my face!"

"Do you know what you're doing?" Danny asked in a low voice.

He couldn't stand this. "I just _told _you – "

" – _I mean right now_." Danny snapped, cutting across him. "Do you know what you're doing right now?"

There was something in Danny's voice. He paused. Looked at himself. He was standing in front of Danny, squared up to Danny, his fists clenched, still spoiling for a fight, still tense and angry and ready and it was all too obvious where this was going.

_No. _This was what he didn't want. This was what he never wanted.

With a hoarse, agonised cry, he threw himself across the alley, as far from Danny as he could and he turned back and yelled. "Nothing hurts, Danny. Nothing hurts I'm not scared and it's not normal and it's not right and I don't know what to do!"

There was a moment of silence.

"Oh, Rus'." Danny's voice was gentle and helpless.

He wasn't finished. "And I'm scared all the time, and I keep thinking Dad's going to find us, and I think I'm going crazy and I don't want to hurt you."

"That's why you wanted me to hate you," Danny said with quiet understanding. "That's why you wanted to leave."

He leaned back against the wall and slid to the ground. "Sometimes...sometimes Mom wasn't hurting me when she hurt me. Sometimes she didn't see me. Things can be inherited, Danny. And I'm so angry all the time, and I've been having all these nightmares, and I saw...I thought I saw..."

"What?" Danny asked gently.

"Dad," he admitted.

There was a pause. And he didn't look at Danny, not even when Danny crossed the alley and crouched down in front of him. "When?"

He stared at his hands. "Fell asleep in a doorway. The owner was chasing me, I ran into this cop and I thought he was Dad."

There was a long silence and he could feel Danny frowning. "So you were sleep-deprived and disorientated and panicking and you were running and you thought you saw the thing you're normally running from?"

He knew what Danny wanted him to think. Knew the conclusions Danny wanted him to reach. But it didn't work. "You can't just – "

Danny sat beside him. " – I just think that maybe there are other explanations here, Rus'. I think that maybe you're jumping to the worst options."

He licked his lips. "What, you think that if I got a good night's sleep everything would be better?" He thought he meant to sound scornful. Really, he just sounded desperate and hopeful.

"Couldn't hurt," Danny said calmly.

"I've been having these nightmares," he admitted blindly.

"I know." Danny sounded comforting. And right in that moment, all Rusty wanted to do was lay his head on Danny's shoulder. Let Danny take care of him.

"They were waking me up all the time," he went on shakily. "I took the pills so I'd stay asleep. I didn't want to wake up."

There was a pause. "You should've told me," Danny said at last, and he was sitting closer now.

"Everything's supposed to be better," Rusty said quietly. "That was the point. We get away from there and everything's supposed to be better." His voice rose at the end and he could hear the tremor.

"Look at me," Danny said firmly, and Rusty turned his head. "Everything _is _better," Danny said and he meant it, Rusty could see in his eyes that he meant it. "We'll get through this, I promise, Rus'. Nothing we can't do."

Rusty smiled at him. "Nothing we can't do," he echoed and in that moment he believed it.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Been a while for this story. And this is second last chapter and last chapter is all but written so should be done very soon. Promise. **

* * *

They walked in silence, heading home and Rusty must have run further than he'd thought; he barely knew where he was. Couldn't really remember running and the streets were still full of the afternoon crowds, the Saturday shoppers and he must have passed by so many of them, and he didn't _remember._ He could imagine how Danny must have felt, following him, seeing him lost and uncertain and he still found it difficult to believe that he'd had no idea Danny was _there. _He couldn't remember the last time that had happened. Actually, he was sure that had never happened before.

It was raining slightly and he kept his head down, as if he was trying to keep his face dry. Really he was just ashamed and uneasy.

He didn't know what Danny was thinking. Didn't know what Danny was planning. And more than that, he couldn't help but feel that people were looking at him, that people were too close, and he couldn't help but imagine Dad walking through the crowd, pressing close to him, to Danny, and he wouldn't even know until it was too late, until his Dad was right there, grabbing him, grabbing Danny, hurting them.

With a deep breath, he forced the thought away. Fear and paranoia and nothing more, and instead he was thinking about the alley and squaring up to Danny, readying himself to fight _Danny. _How could he have done that? How could he have let that happen? He didn't know, and he felt again that he was putting Danny in danger, that he should get away, that he had to keep Danny safe.

Danny's arm was tight around his shoulders, holding Rusty close, like he was afraid that Rusty was going to run off at any moment and Rusty felt a sudden flare of irritation. Danny didn't trust him. He took a deep breath. Closed his eyes for a second, concentrating on putting one foot in front of another, concentrating on mastering the anger. Danny didn't trust him. And that was reasonable enough. His behaviour the past few days or weeks or whatever – Danny had every right to be frightened that Rusty would pull another disappearing act.

"More like I'm scared that you're going to just vanish into thin air," Danny said quietly, his hand squeezing Rusty's shoulder gently. There was a catch in his voice, the fear and exhaustion that he was desperately trying to hide from Rusty.

"I...I'm not going to run," he promised Danny, suddenly weary to the bone. "I'm with you."

"Good," Danny whispered and his arm was so tight around Rusty and Rusty leaned in against Danny as close as he could and they walked that way in silence all the way home.

* * *

The apartment was cold when they got in and Danny led him to the kitchen table and got him settled, eying him thoughtfully. "When did you last eat?"

An image flashed through his head, lying back on a sofa, the woman straddling him, popping chocolate-covered cherries into his mouth. He grimaced and shook his head quickly. "Don't know," he lied.

Danny nodded and Rusty didn't know what he was thinking, and then Danny smiled brightly and turned away from him and started moving things around the kitchen and Rusty blinked at the sounds of cooking.

"You're making me dinner?" he asked, largely involuntarily.

"You don't need to sound so surprised," Danny said and there was just a hint of laughter in his voice.

"I _am_ so surprised," Rusty told him.

Danny turned round, a frying pan in his hand. "I must have cooked you dinner before."

"Not recently," Rusty said, and he was smiling.

"Oh. Well." Danny turned back to the stove. "Guess this makes a nice change then."

He grinned and leaned back in his chair and he was so tired suddenly and he closed his eyes.

A few moments later and there was the smell of bacon and eggs and Danny laid the plate on the table in front of him.

He stared from the plate to Danny, sitting at the table opposite him with a plate of his own, and Danny had cooked for him, Danny had made him dinner even though Rusty had scared him and shouted at him and generally behaved like a complete bastard. And still Danny had made him dinner and was sitting here with him, only worrying about him, only _thinking _about him.

Suddenly a hand was on his and he could _feel _Danny's worry and concern. "Hey. Rus', it's just bacon and eggs."

"I know." He took a deep breath, and ran his hand through his hair. "I don't...what are we doing here, Danny? What's the plan?"

"Dinner," Danny said immediately. "I thought we'd have dinner and then I thought we'd grab a few hours sleep and then I thought we'd talk."

"I thought...I thought you'd want to talk now," Rusty said uncertainly. He didn't think he wanted to, he'd just assumed that Danny was going to want to get through everything tonight, he'd thought there would be pain and shouting and he'd been dreading it and now he didn't know what to think.

"I want to take care of you," Danny said gently and his thumb was brushing over Rusty's knuckles.

"I don't need taken care of!" The words were fierce and immediate and Danny didn't react and didn't turn away from him and didn't let go of his hand and Rusty looked down, ashamed, and shook his head, trying to dislodge the emotional and the irrational and the stupid. "Sorry. Danny, I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Danny said immediately with a sigh. "Why don't we eat, huh? 's been a while and I'm starving."

They ate and the food tasted good and Danny was eating just as enthusiastically as he was.

Four days. He'd been gone for four days. Safe to say Danny hadn't eaten and Danny hadn't slept. Soon as he thought that, the food tasted like guilt.

He looked at Danny – really looked at Danny - and he could see the absolute exhaustion, the effect of days of nerve-shredding terror with no idea when it would end, no idea if it _would _end, nothing but the remains of ever-dwindling hope.

This was what he'd done. And this time, with his emotions in a tight grip of self control, he didn't want to run. This time he wanted to stay with Danny, and it didn't feel like selfish need.

"Want to watch some TV?" Danny suggested when the food was gone, and he nodded, silently, and they sat on the sofa and it was just like any other night, except maybe they were sitting a little closer than normal and Danny kept looking at him anxiously out of the corner of his eye, like he was checking to be absolutely sure that Rusty was still there.

Normal. _Their_ normal. And yesterday he had been...and Danny had _thought _he'd been... and here they were, watching TV like nothing was wrong, and the crazy thing was, it helped. It actually helped. He was feeling calm and safe and sleepy and none of the anger, none of the pain was anyplace close to the surface.

By the time he felt Danny look at him, pursed lips and thoughtful concern, his eyes were closed, and he was drifting close enough to sleep that he didn't object when Danny turned the TV off.

He slept.

* * *

When he woke up it was dark outside and his head was resting comfortably in Danny's lap. Oh, that was...unexpected.

The TV was on again. Low volume, but he could just about make out some kind of infomercial. People debating the merits of multi-functional hedge strimmers. Well, that tended to suggest it was some ridiculous time in the morning. He must have been asleep for hours.

He stayed still. One of Danny's arms was slung easily around Rusty's chest, and his other hand was nestled in Rusty's hair. Comforting. Comfortable. And Rusty had absolutely no desire to move. Once upon a time, back when he was a kid, this would've been the sort of situation that would have left him pretending to be asleep and Danny pretending to believe him. Now...now he wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to react. He'd fucked up a lot lately. And there was part of him that was absolutely certain on how that was supposed to feel, and it wasn't supposed to feel like this.

"Morning," Danny said quietly above him.

"You sure?" he asked immediately.

He felt the smile. "Four o'clock, give or take. Sun will be coming up soon. How are you feeling?"

He made himself think about the question. Physically? He was feeling fine. Little tired, little achy, but nothing to write home about. The hangover had vanished, somewhere along the line, and it wasn't like the fight had actually happened. But physically wasn't all that Danny had meant. It wasn't even _most _of what Danny had meant. "I don't know," he said finally, twisting round to look up at Danny.

Danny nodded and didn't look surprised, and he smiled reassuringly down at Rusty. They sat in silence for a while, and really, Rusty should be thinking about sitting up sometime soon. But he didn't. Wasn't like Danny seemed in a hurry to let him go.

"How many functions can a hedge strimmer have?" Rusty wondered as the TV urged them to buy one.

"Can probably trim small shrubs too," Danny commented, and he turned the TV off with a sigh. "Sorry. Watching you sleep got boring after the first four hours."

He gazed up at Danny thoughtfully and Danny really had been watching over him for hours, and Rusty reached up and squeezed his hand gently. "You saying that I'm less interesting than a hedge strimmer?"

"Never," Danny said immediately.

"You get any sleep?" he asked, frowning and worried. Because Danny had looked at least as tired as him, and some of the strain seemed to have faded from around his eyes, but Rusty still wasn't happy.

Danny shrugged. "Yeah. Some. Bits and pieces here and there."

The guilt rushed over him again and Danny shouldn't be having to take care of him like this, shouldn't be sacrificing his own needs for Rusty's sake, and Rusty tensed up, the need to get out, the need to be punished burning through him.

"_Idiot,_" Danny muttered, and Rusty wasn't sure which of them he was talking to.

He sat up quickly, rubbing his hand against his eyes, and turning round on the sofa to face Danny. "You want to talk?"

Danny pulled his legs up onto the sofa and sighed. "Tell me."

For a moment, he wondered whether he should. Whether he should just let Danny go.

Danny's hand was on his, reminding him that Danny didn't want to lose him, that Danny was here with him. "What's been happening?"

"It's just..." He struggled with the words. "Just the past few weeks, I haven't been...I'm just angry. And scared."

"What are you scared of?" Danny asked gently.

He looked away, ashamed. "Dad," he said in a whisper.

"Yeah," Danny said softly. "Me too."

"Really?" he asked involuntarily.

Danny was staring at him. "You think there's anything in the world...you think there ever _could _be anything in the world that would frighten me more than your Dad?"

He shrugged uneasily and looked away. "I can't stop thinking about...everything he did to me. I've been having nightmares. Going over it in my head. Every time... I can't make it stop, Danny." He hadn't been able to make it stop at the time and he couldn't make it stop now and the images were screaming through his head.

"Oh, Rus'," Danny said, reaching out and putting his hand on Rusty's shoulder. Rusty still wasn't looking at him and a second later, Danny's hand was on Rusty's jaw and Danny lifted his head up looking deep into Rusty's eyes. "You ever think that you should be angry?"

He stared. Being angry was pointless. It was all in the past, and besides, anger was for...anger was listening to Danny's mother, dealing with Danny's father, anger was standing between Danny and Richard. Being angry because of...it felt selfish. Felt wrong. Felt _petty._

Danny looked angry. Danny looked furious. "You _know _he had no right to hurt you. You _know _it wasn't right. And all the time you were a kid, you were never angry about it. _I _know that. It was all about survival. But you _should _be angry with him. You have a right to be angry with him."

"I...I..." He shook his head and took a deep breath. "I am angry," he admitted heavily. "And I'm scared...I don't want to ever see him again and I'm sure...I keep thinking he's here. I keep thinking he's coming for us. Keep having nightmares that he's hurting you."

"I know," Danny said, and as Rusty stared he smiled tiredly. "You think you're the only one who has those nightmares, Rus'?"

There was a catch in Danny's voice, and Rusty frowned. "Tell me?"

Danny studied the table for a few moments. "A knock at the door. I don't want to open it but I do. Mom's standing there and there's a couple of cops with her, and she says that she's changed her mind, that she wants me to come back, that I _have _to come back, and the cops are in the living room and they're holding you tightly, and they drag you away and I _know _that they're taking you back to your Dad's, and I can _see _when they throw you inside, lock the door, and your Dad's standing there, holding a belt, and then he...he...And I can't do anything. I can't stop him. I'm not even there, I'm miles away, with Mom, and she won't stop smiling." His voice was loud and trembling.

"Oh, Danny," Rusty said, and his arm was around Danny's shoulders, reaching out on sheer instinct. But Danny wouldn't meet his eyes, and there was something else...He frowned. "How many times?"

"Once or twice," Danny said, shrugging easily.

Rusty looked at him.

Danny bit his lip. "A few times. Couple of times a week, maybe."

He didn't blink. And he didn't look away.

"Most nights," Danny admitted, and sighed. "Every night. For the last six weeks, every night."

"Danny," Rusty was holding him tightly and it was guilt and fear and he _hadn't noticed _and he thought about all the times he'd seen Danny late at night, all the times Danny had been the one jumping at sudden noises, all the times Danny had been checking on him and he'd thought that was just about _him_. He should have known. "Danny, why didn't you _tell _me?"

"Look who's talking," Danny shot back immediately, and just as quickly he shook his head. "Sorry. I didn't tell you and maybe I should have. It just felt like you had enough to deal with."

"Danny..." He shook his head and that just didn't work. It wasn't how they worked.

"You wanted to leave me, remember?" Danny said harshly. "Because you were trying to protect me. It's the same thing."

"It's not," he protested. Danny telling him wouldn't have put him in danger, and he absolutely wasn't thinking about the fact that he would have wanted Danny to tell him even if he knew it would have hurt him or even killed him.

"It is." Danny's tone brooked no arguments.

"I think I'm going crazy. Like Mom." He had meant to say it calmly. Rationally. Express the possibility. But his voice was a whisper and he sounded like a terrified child.

Danny was looking at him, understanding and unflinching and absolutely and unfailingly certain. "I think you're not. I think you're angry and you're scared and you've been pushing yourself too far, and you're not used to living a life where you don't have to run for your life every few days. I don't think you're crazy. You're not crazy, Rus'."

He swallowed and he couldn't deal with the conviction in Danny and all he could think was deflecting the moment. "So, you're saying the solution is that I should get caught stealing on a regular basis?"

"Oh, that's not an answer I like," Danny said, shaking his head, and his voice might be light but his eyes didn't leave Rusty's for a second and there was no doubt there, none at all.

"Danny – " He didn't know what he was wanting to say but he had to make Danny stop looking at him like that.

"I just want you to think about these things, Rusty," Danny said gently.

He bit his lip. "But what do we do – "

" – I don't know. But we do it together." Danny looked at him steadily. "The other two times you've been beaten up...was it the same deal?"

"Did I go looking for it?" he asked, and Danny nodded. "Yeah."

Danny seemed to be struggling to find words.

Rusty glared, defensive and irritated. "Oh, come on. Like you never got drunk and got into fights when you were my age!"

There was a long silence and Rusty's eyes were wide and he wanted to take back the words the moment they were spoken. Because, yes, Danny _had. _When Danny was fifteen there had been plenty of alcohol and more than one fight and they both remembered why and they both remembered how it had ended, and that hadn't been what he wanted to make Danny think of, not at all, not ever.

"Danny, I...I didn't mean...I'm _sorry," _he stammered, and he could see the pain in Danny's eyes, and why was he always doing this, always hurting and his hands were trembling and he should be...he _deserved..._

"Rus', stop." Danny bit his lip. "You said...you said that it wasn't right that you weren't hurt. Wasn't normal."

He shrugged and looked away. "Statistically speaking, it's not."

There was silence and Danny was waiting for him to speak.

He wasn't going to.

"Don't you think you should tell me the truth?" Danny added persuasively.

The irritation was creeping up on him again and he got to his feet in a hurry, responding to the demands of agitation and he paced across the room, wheeling round to face Danny. "You want the truth, Danny? It feels _safer_ if I'm hurt. The worst has already happened so I don't need to worry anymore." Danny was watching him, face blank, and it just made him more angry, and _that _made him feel guilty because he _knew _what he'd put Danny through, and Danny was still looking at him. "And maybe it's what should have happened, you ever think of that, huh? I hurt you so maybe I deserve..." He stopped, horrified at the words that he'd heard himself say.

Danny was staring at him, his face a picture of grief and misery.

So many years. So many times that Danny had told him that he didn't deserve what happened to him. And he believed that, didn't he? He was supposed to believe that. He _was sure _he believed that.

He licked his lips and made himself look Danny in the eye. "I...I..." He sighed. "You know when I said I didn't need taken care of? I think maybe I was wrong."

Danny stood up and crossed the floor, grasping his hands. "I'll take care of you. Just like you take care of me. Rus', it's going to be okay. I promise."

He was looking Danny straight in the eyes. "I didn't deserve to be hit. Not when it was Dad and not now."

"No," Danny said, smiling at him gently. "No, you didn't."

Being beaten was no kind of absolution and it didn't mean that he was safe. All it meant was that Dad won.

"He'd love this," Rusty muttered, turning away.

"No," Danny disagreed quietly. "He wouldn't care."

Rusty looked back quickly and waited.

"I've been having nightmares about Mom coming after us. I've been terrified of your Dad finding us. And you know what? It's nonsense. It's irrational. It's never, ever going to happen."

"It could," he argued, and even now he could imagine Dad lurking outside their building, could imagine him breaking the door down, even, could imagine how _unstoppable _Dad really was.

"He doesn't care, Rus'," Danny said simply. "He wouldn't be able to find us, he doesn't know where to start looking, not even what state, and it's not like our real names are on the lease, or anywhere, and most importantly, he _doesn't care_. I doubt he's given a second thought to where you've got to. Just like my Mom."

"We don't _know _that," Rusty said desperately. Dad could be here, now, could be looking, could find them, could hurt them.

Danny looked at him thoughtfully. "He doesn't care. He probably hasn't even reported you missing."

He set his mouth stubbornly and Danny turned away and picked up the phone. "Okay, then," he said, dialling a number.

"It's three o'clock in the morning," Rusty reminded him.

Danny grimaced a second before he said "Hey, Bobby, it's Danny. Sorry to wake you." He listened for a while. "No, it's not an emergency...I should call back in the morning." More listening and Rusty crossed over to Danny, leaned in as close as he could, wanting to hear what Bobby was saying.

"It's okay, Danny," Bobby said patiently with a suppressed yawn. "What's going on?"

"We were just wondering if you could run a check for us tomorrow? On us, I mean," Danny clarified, meeting Rusty's eyes. "Want to know if we're showing up on any missing person's database. Think you can help us out?"

"You've not been reported missing," Bobby said immediately.

Too immediately. Rusty frowned at Danny. "I thought you'd need to check...?" Danny said slowly, questioningly.

Bobby sighed. "I've already checked, Danny. I checked the moment you first told me you'd moved to New York and I've run the check frequently since then."

"Oh," Rusty said with quiet surprise.

"That you Rusty?" Bobby asked sounding more awake and thoughtful. "No one's looking for you guys, I swear. You're safe."

Safe. The word was...unexpected and unfamiliar, and Bobby wasn't supposed to expect that they had ever been anything else.

"Thanks, Bobby," Danny said. "Sorry again for waking you."

"It's no problem, Danny," Bobby said, and the reassurance came across loud and clear. "You call anytime you need to, I told you that."

Yeah. They'd never meant to take that quite this literally. "Sorry anyway," he said, leaning into the receiver. "Goodnight, Bobby."

"Goodnight," Danny echoed, and a second later the phone was hung up.

Danny was looking straight at him. "No one is looking for us, Rusty," he said again, intensely. "Not my Mom, not your Dad. You heard what Bobby said."

He had. And it was...reassuring. He liked the idea that no one was looking. Liked the idea that they'd fallen off the map. And it pushed the image of Dad further away. Made the whole thing that less real. A nightmare. A terrifying, irrational nightmare. Not a reality. Not something to lie awake worrying about.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to let go of the fear. Then he opened his eyes and smiled at Danny, the gratitude and the relief and, yes, the _love_ shining through him. "Thank you," he said quietly.

Danny was smiling right back at him. "Don't thank me, Rus'," he warned gently. He sighed. "So, you didn't have any nightmares last night."

Danny had been there. He didn't voice it out loud. But then, he didn't need to.

The thought had Danny frowning. "I should have thought of that," he muttered.

Rusty grinned. "What, we're going to share a bed now?"

"Nothing we haven't done before," Danny said firmly. "And I don't know about you, but after..._after_..." The memory of blood and bruises and fear and comfort hung in the air. "It always made me feel better. Safer. And I could certainly use a few less nightmares."

Blatant honesty. It had a way of disarming him. "Okay," he said quietly and he was already thinking ahead, and he thought of Danny, right there and it felt like it would help. It felt like it would more than help.

"I thought we might go away for a few days," Danny added, looking at him carefully. "Just the two of us. Take a trip out of town, someplace relaxing, get away from everything?"

"School," he reminded Danny. They were supposed to be being careful Lying low. He was due back in school on Monday, people would notice.

Danny nodded. "I thought we might forge a doctor's note. Maybe schedule a few follow up appointments to make it convincing."

And give them some extra time out during the week. Time to relax. Time to reconnect. Just what they needed, and Danny was nowhere near giving up on him.

He smiled. "Okay," he agreed.

"It's going to take a while to get used to everything," Danny went on. "But as long as we're together, it's going to be okay. We'll get through this just fine."

"I know," Rusty said, and he believed it.

Danny wasn't giving up on him. And as long as Danny wasn't giving up, Rusty wouldn't either.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: And this is the final chapter of this story! Thank you all so much for sticking with it! **

**A/N2: And yes, I have now finished two stories in rapid succession. And no, for once I'm not planning on starting three things to replace them. And yes, I _know _I've started 'Eye for an eye' but as that's on a strict timetable it doesn't count. Anyway, for now on, I'm going to focus on the things I already have started. **

**A/N3: For InSilva. Of course.  
**

* * *

Two weeks and Danny was beginning to breathe again.

The last two months had been a nightmare. Literally, in many ways. Call him naive, but back when they'd first got the idea to get out, back when his Mom had first decided she'd had enough, he'd honestly thought that they would just live happily ever after. No more pain. No more fear. Not ever.

Instead he'd found himself watching as Rusty suffered and shut him out a bit at a time.

The first time he'd had the nightmare had been the night after he'd come home to find no sign of Rusty. And he hadn't been bothered at first – he'd just figured that Rusty was out somewhere. But as the hours went by the worry set in and he'd gone looking. Eventually he'd found Rusty shivering on a park bench, his eyes distant and exhausted, and Danny had seen that look in Rusty's eyes so many times before. He didn't have answers. All he had been able to do was take Rusty home, make sure he was safe, and when he'd asked the next day...Rusty hadn't really told him anything. Not anything that added up.

And he'd watched and worried and there wasn't anything he could put his finger on, and he'd been left constructing his own scenarios.

And at night he dreamed them.

Perhaps it was inevitable he dreamt of Mom coming for them. After all, he thought about that a lot. Because she'd said she never wanted to see him again, but she'd given him until he was eighteen. And he wasn't eighteen, not quite, not yet. Suppose she'd been planning on changing her mind? Maybe she could legally force him to come back. Maybe she could legally take Rusty away from him. It was a plausible nightmare.

So he dreamt and he woke, terrified, and he went and checked on Rusty, needing to be sure that Rusty was still here, still real.

And life went on like that and things got worse, and the morning that he found Rusty battered and bruised was among the worst in his life.

He'd figured that was as bad as things could possibly get.

Then Rusty had been arguing with him, _screaming _at him, telling him that he didn't want to be with Danny anymore, that everything they had was over. Harsh words and cruel taunts, and just because he'd been able to hear the lie didn't mean that it hadn't _hurt._

It had.

Oh, it had hurt so fucking much. So much worse than anything his Mom had ever said.

But it would never make a difference to the way he felt about Rusty. He doubted that anything could make a difference to the way he felt about Rusty.

And then Rusty was just gone. Run away.

Had been ten minutes before Danny had realised and then he'd been charging down the stairs, already a life time too late.

He'd found the liqour store. Heard that Rusty had left with a bunch of older younger kids. And he'd heard that Rusty had bought a bottle of whisky and although he hadn't been _happy _about it, he'd also been relieved, imaging that Rusty would get drunk and come back.

That first night he'd phoned round all Rusty's friends from school, talking to them, talking to their parents, some pretext about homework and none of them had the slightest clue where Rusty was. He'd moved on to calling others, Mike from their old high school, professional connections they'd made in the past few months, new pretexts and stories and he hadn't dared share truth, and still he'd got nothing.

After that he'd moved on, searching the streets, starting with the likely and the close by, places that Rusty might go if he wanted to be alone, if he needed space.

Four days. And it was twelve hours before he started thinking about checking the hospitals and the police stations but if he did that...if he did that, eventually someone would ask what a seventeen year old and a fifteen year old were doing living together, and then everything they'd worked for would be over.

And Rusty was _missing _and part of Danny thought he should call the police, call for help, but he _couldn't_.

He was alone.

Going back had been the last resort. He couldn't imagine why Rusty would go back to his Dad, but he'd looked everywhere else, and he'd been cursing himself for waiting four days when Rusty had come back. Because if Rusty had been with his Dad, four days would have been an infinity of too long.

It had been anyway. And now Danny _needed _every second of reassurance and reconnection, just as much as Rusty did.

They'd gone away for a couple of days, just like Danny had suggested. Working on little more than instinct, but it had seemed like a good idea to get Rusty away from the place that would remind him of remembering.

And yeah, they _should _be being more careful as far as Rusty's school was concerned, their life was kind of precarious and they _had _to avoid attention, but next to keeping Rusty whole and sane – it was an acceptable risk.

He'd made a phonecall, forged a doctor's letter concentrated on being mature and grave at the same time, and it seemed as though they were satisfied. And he'd made a point of asking for all the schoolwork Rusty had missed, and they'd spent a dull evening just going through it, making sure it was perfect and up to date. The school would have nothing to complain about.

But before that, they'd taken a trip up to the mountains. A luxury hotel, their own secluded cabin, and maybe they weren't the wealthy heirs of a wealthier oil baron that they were _pretending _to be, but their money was just as good as if they were.

The first day they'd spent talking. Or Rusty had spent talking. All the memories, all the little moments of pointless brutality, and Rusty had talked steadily for hours.

Hadn't been the most difficult thing Danny had ever had to listen to. But it had been up there, and even though he'd heard so much of it before, he'd had to fight to keep the horror away from his face. And he'd listened and he hadn't been able to help imagining how easy it would be to get his hands on a gun. How easy it would be to go back, jump in a car instead of going to college some morning, wait until the bastard was asleep or passed out and put a dozen bullets into his head. It would be easy. And it would be _right. _

He listened to Rusty's recount his life and he listened as Rusty's voice grew hoarse with emotion and pain and anger.

Plenty to be angry about. So much to be angry about. And Danny had let Rusty be angry. And he'd heard all that undertones as Rusty desperately tried to find a reason for it all.

"There was no reason," he said at last, when Rusty was finished. "There was never any reason."

There never could be any reason.

Rusty had looked at him for a long moment. "That's it," he said with quiet intensity. "I'm done with the past. I'm not gonna talk about it ever again."

Danny nodded. "You don't have to," he agreed carefully. "But Rus', if you ever need to...if you ever _want _to – "

Rusty was smiling at him and somehow he was standing in front of Danny now, clasping his hands. " – I know. Oh, Danny, I know. And I'll never shut you out again."

"Better not," he said breathlessly, with a tight smile of his own, and maybe he wasn't exactly sure Rusty would always be able to keep his promise, but he knew Rusty would try.

Rusty studied him carefully and his eyes were full of sympathy and of _course _Rusty would know how difficult it was for Danny to listen to that.

"Thank you," Rusty said softly.

He smiled and leaned forwards and pressed his lips to Rusty's forehead. "Don't thank me."

* * *

The next day and there was inexplicable winter sports on the TV, and they sat in front of the TV and made bets on who was going to fall over next.

In the evening they lit the log fire – well, _Danny _lit the log fire, after a brief but spirited discussion about who got to play with matches – and they lay back and lazily toasted marshmallows.

"You know," Danny commented thoughtfully, breaking a lingering, comfortable silence. "I should remember this place. Seems like it would be a great place to impress girls."

"You're not impressive enough in your own right?" Rusty asked with interest, licking gooey marshmallow off his fingers.

He grinned. "Beats the drive thru, anyway."

There was another few moments of silence and this was less comfortable and he could see that Rusty was hesitating around the edge of something.

"What?" he asked, with gentle encouragement.

Rusty looked at him earnestly. "I kept my promise, Danny," he said and then he must have caught sight of Danny's confusion, because he went on. "When I was away. I was pretty out of it, but I was careful. And I...made sure everyone who needed to be was careful."

Oh. Danny flashed a quick smile of understanding and reassurance. And yeah, of course, he was glad that Rusty had remembered his promise, and what's more he believed Rusty when he said that nothing had happened that he hadn't wanted. It was just that from a couple of things Rusty had said, from the marks he'd seen on Rusty's body that night, (and he couldn't quite suppress the mental snarl at the memory) at least some of Rusty's..._partners..._had been adults, and they might see themselves as adult but that wasn't what _other _people saw. And when Rusty had come home, he'd been more than out of it. And maybe Rusty was okay with the picture all this painted, but Danny wasn't so sure_ he _was. Danny thought that somewhere out there there was someone...maybe a bunch of someones...who had knowingly taken advantage. And he wanted to explain that was a bad idea.

And more than that, because the image, the memory of Rusty confused and vulnerable, all self-control gone – it terrified him. "What did you take, anyway?" he asked as casually as he could, because he had to know what he might be dealing with, had to know what he should be looking for.

The look in Rusty's eyes told him that he hadn't been anywhere near casual enough. "I'm not going to do that again, Danny," he promised gently. "No more drugs, I swear. I didn't like it."

"Good," he said, and he let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding.

Rusty grinned. "So you reckon if we melt all the chocolate in the minibar we'll have fondue?"

* * *

The time away had been what they'd needed. Four days spending every last moment in each others company and he'd watched Rusty relaxing a little more each day, watched as the tension unwound, the fear and anger faded.

And even after they got home, there were a few changes to the routine. Sleeping in the same room – the same bed – and Danny's nightmares all-but vanished. Rusty's didn't disappear completely, but they were less frequent and Danny was right there to offer comfort and reassurance.

Wasn't forever. But right now, it made things better.

And he made sure he went straight home after college, wanting to spend as much time with Rusty as possible, not wanting to leave Rusty alone.

"You shouldn't," Rusty had said, once he'd figured that part of the plan out. "Normal life, remember? 's what we're aiming for. You're supposed to be making friends. Having a life."

Danny looked at him in silence, thinking of the four days Rusty had been missing, and how alone and terrified he'd been. "I'm never going to meet any friends I care about more than you," he pointed out levelly. "I want to do what I want to do."

They spent every moment they could together and their parents, their old life, seemed so far away now. Just like it should be.

And yes, Danny was watching Rusty carefully. Looking for the signs in Rusty that Rusty had seen in himself. Looking for the beginnings of sickness.

He didn't see anything. He wasn't surprised.

He knew Rusty better than he knew himself, and he sure he would have known, would have seen.

And they'd talked before, about their parental legacy, and he'd sworn that Rusty would never be his father every bit as fiercely as Rusty had promised Danny that _he'd _never be _his _father. Danny had never considered that Rusty might be afraid of the more concrete inheritance his mother represented.

It was never going to happen. He was sure of that. And as the days went past and Rusty grew calmer, he offered the assurance and comfort of his certainty every day.

Every moment, waking or sleeping. And it wasn't forever, it didn't _need _to be forever, and once they felt just a little more secure, things would drift closer to normal.

But right now they were together.

Happily ever after was just a matter of time.


End file.
